Revised Healthcare

There is no doubt that something needed to be done with healthcare. With this said, however, is the plan that we have just passed the right one? With commitments such as Medicare, the National Debt, and Social Security, our government, theoretically, should not be taking off more than it can chew. As of now, each citizen shares a portion of the national debt, around $35,000 per household. Still, we are pushing and pushing for more. To make matters worse, not only is the bill difficult to understand, it’s also infeasible.
The first question: what is proposed in the Healthcare Reform Bill? Although a large portion of Americans show high interest and agree that it affects them personally, 69% say that it is hard to understand (1). In an anonymous summary of the Healthcare Bill, user ThomCat on DemocraticUnderground.com posted both good and bad bullets of different sections of the bill. While the pros are very good, the cons are overwhelming. In Statement 12, the user addresses the standard for the Qualifying Plan, which is the base insurance given by employers. The National Qualifying Plan prices and services are set by employers, so if employers start offering less to their employees, the national Qualifying Plan goes down. Following Statement 12, the Cost Sharing Plan is addressed. The average co-pay, per person is projected to be roughly $5,000 per year, and is subject to increase, linked to Consumer Price Index. Not only will enhanced plans cost more, but the services won’t match the payment (2).
With a government-based healthcare system, we are also riding against a core principle in our country itself: a free market society. As stated in Joe Messerli’s article, “Should the Government Provide Free Universal Healthcare for All Americans,” “profit motives, competition, and individual ingenuity” have long been the cause for cost control and effectiveness (3). With a government-based plan, this is ruled out and almost no alternatives will be made to help lower prices. Existing insurance companies will have to meet government mandates in order to remain in effect. This will lead to the addition of unnecessary physical appointments to be met by patients (while a trained doctor may know what is wrong with his/her patient, he/she may be bound by contract to run unnecessary tests while the patient’s life could be at risk) (4). Doctors will lose flexibility and suffer from a decrease of salary, resulting in poor patient care, and healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for those who smoke, are obese, etc. Personal freedoms can also decline, as the government will most likely impose regulations or increase taxes on things risks like cigarettes, fast foods, etc. All in all, there is no incentive for young adults to get into the medical practice, there is no incentive to reduce prices in healthcare, as there won’t be any competition, people will lose their individual freedoms and some will be dragged down to compensate for those who don’t pay taxes.
There are alternative ways to easing the difficulty for many of those without health insurance, and certainly, healthcare has gotten out of control. For instance, say we modeled health insurance after car insurance. There are dozens of car insurance companies that all compete for consumers, and thus they keep the prices relatively low. This could be done for health insurance too. Instead of employers deciding what coverage they want, what if the people themselves chose the company they wanted to represent them? And what if there was a base insurance plan, one that covered “x” number of doctor visits, “n” number of hospital visits, “y” number of prescription medicines, etc. The bill does include a plan that would provide for that, however, it is only available to those without employer-provided insurance (quite likely, in the future, the government-run insurer may be able to compete so that they are the ONLY private insurer, allowing them to up their prices- personal opinion, disregard :). On top of that, if someone acquired a personal injury and had to pay high medical bills for that one injury, they could up their medical insurance coverage and only pay for what they needed.
For those who could absolutely not afford medical insurance, they would receive a cut on their payment, but also a cut in what services they could have. Limited Medicaid would also be available. This would all be provided for, of course, by those who can afford to cover themselves. In the Senate bill, tax deductions would decline while new taxes would be added on benefits such as a “Gold-plated” health insurance plan (which would be paid by only those who could afford to have the “Gold-plated” plan). The house bill doesn’t call for an increase on taxes for benefits, but rather a 5.4% increase on income taxes for individuals who earn $500,000 a year and families who earn $1,000,000 (4).
The problem is not just in healthcare. Due to the economic recession, globalization, and new technology, unemployment has been steadily increasing, causing the government to take action. While only 54% were employed by the Federal government in 2000, economist Gary Shillings predicts that 2/3 will owe their livelihoods to them by 2018. This will lead to federal deficits much larger than the ones we incur now, and eventually, the market will collapse as foreign lenders will stop lending (5).
The current government needs to start making decisions that affect the WHOLE country positively, rather than a vocal minority, and more than ever, it needs to start looking at the future of our nation. We’re a sinking ship, but if we start now, we can attempt to save ourselves.

See Gary Shilling’s economic predictions for 2009 at:
http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/gary-shillings-2009-predictions-were-still-screwed


1. Kohut, Andrew, et.al. Public Closely Tracking Healthcare Debate. Pew Research Center. 2009. http://people-press.org/report/571/healthcare-obama-economy
2. Anonymous. A Summary Review of the House Healthcare Bill. Democratic Underground. 2009.http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x8530145
3. Messerli, Joe. Should the Government Provide Universal Healthcare for All Americans? Balanced Politics .org. 2009. ttp://www.balancedpolitics.org/universal_health_care.htm
4. http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20091224/ts_usnews/howthesenatebillwouldchangehealthcare
5. Newman, Rick. How the Government is Swallowing the Economy. US News .com. 2009. http://www.usnews.com/money/blogs/flowchart/2009/11/09/how-the-government-is-swallowing-the-economy