Health Care Reform, Bad Policy

I’m a fan of the notion that the health care industry has gotten out of hand.  The system, including the pharmaceutical industry, needs some kind of reform to become more available, more cost-friendly, more efficient, and as silly as it sounds, healthier.  However, it’s for these reasons that I’m uneasy, as all Americans should be, with the current health care bill being muscled through the senate.

The senate health committee has already voted to pass the bill.  However, not only conservative but also many moderate members of senate committees are demanding changes, and this includes some Democrats.  This is a good indication that there could be some serious fundamental flaws.  It is also pushing wider the divide that causes a functional impasse between political parties.  It is irresponsible and reckless to deepen this divide, especially concerning such major issues.  Progress cannot be made, improvements cannot be added, and flaws cannot be corrected while some childish power struggle plays itself out.  The process is being rushed, almost as if to prove a point; everyone should stop what they’re doing, stop looking at the majority figures, and sit down together like adults and leaders to work something out.  It’s common sense.

The president was quoted as urging congress to “step up and meet our responsibilites” and saying the need “should provide urgency for both the House and the Senate to finish their critical work on health reform before the August recess”.  Why the rush?  It is not responsible to act so hastily.  This is a monumental issue of change in policies regarding one of the largest industries, in terms of size, money and necessity, in America.  Such an issue cannot be resolved overnight, a relatively close enough time frame to the one in which the President is expecting it to be done.  Mr. Obama, with all respect, this is not a national emergency; it needs to be done, but the necessity does not call for passing rash bills; instead, it calls for thoroughly thought through decisions, well made plans, and a lasting solution that won’t need to be fixed in the coming years or cause a scramble of new taxes to provide its funding.

This is going to affect every American, and it will do so for at least the next decade, potentially longer, into generations to come.  Punctuating the need for a slow down, New Hampshire Senator Judd Gregg called for “serious action by Republicans and Democrats” and “a pledge to put politics aside”.  Let’s face it, the politics of Washington’s residents does not have a rightful role to play, because it is, by all reason, the peoples’ decision.

Obama has also been pushing Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus to have a bill ready by Friday.  But Baucus wants a bipartisan bill, and while he praised the efforts of the health committee, he stated, “That’s a partisan bill”.

Aside from this ridiculous attempt at a power show, the costs of the program are astronomical, and at the very least unreasonable.  Obama supports not “universal” health care, but a government run program to operate along side of, and compete with, private insurers, in theory reducing the costs full circle.  New concerns of overturning the current employer-based system of benefits has prompted the notion of government provided financial assistance for premiums to middle and lower class families.  Obama was quoted: “The American people need to recognize that there’s no such thing as a free lunch, right?  So we can’t just provide care to everybody at no cost whatsoever”.  Well, someone needs to recognize that there is already a similar and so-called unsustainable system in place: some people buy insurance; some people can’t afford private insurance and have government sponsored plans; the rest are left in limbo, many of whom work and actually pay taxed into the system, yet are unable to afford private insurance and do not qualify for the low income eligibility standards of Medicaid.

Theoretically, the new bill would eliminate that limbo crowd, making insurance more affordable and available to them.  however, the bill requires government to provide financial assistance to people and families who make up to four times the poverty level (approximately $88,000 a year for a family of four), encompassing most of the middle class.  In reality, this is the unsustainable system, and it is just asking for abuse.  People who truly do not need the assistance would certainly apply for and accept it, costing billions and causing families like mine to foot the tax bill for their health care.  That’s absurd.  My family of five has an annual income of around $29,000, and while it’s nowhere near a life of luxury, we buy our own insurance and pay our premiums with no government assistance.  So I’m positive that a family with one less member and almost three times the income could afford it.  It’s called personal responsibility, and people need to step up to it.  The government needs to expect people to step up to it.  I’m not saying there should be no assistance at all, but that income bracket needs to be lowered by about thirty grand.

On the other hand, Obama suggests excluding “hardship cases” from a coverage mandate.  That’s hardly fair.  Nothing against people on welfare or other assistance who use it correctly (at one time I had my children on Medicaid, so I’m not judging anyone or putting anyone down), but these institutions are so widely abused.  While there are many who really need it and use it in its intended form–assistance–there are also many who use it as a means  of living.  For example, the purpose of food stamps is to supplement a family’s monthly food budget, but many of the parents nationwide who use food stamps, use them as the family’s SOLE monthly food budget.   This goes back to the “personal responsibility” concept, and a lack of it should not be considered “hardship”.  People who work and raise their kids, trying their best to give them a clean, safe, and comfortable living environment, yet struggle to pay their bills, is a hardship case, so exempt them.  But do not exempt those who consider waiting on a welfare “cash allowance” check to be a full time occupation and use that as their sole income; they should be able to use some of their cash allowance to help cover their premiums.

The finance committee is currently looking at options that could possibly raise $100  billion over the next ten years as partial funding of the bill, by imposing fees on health insurance companies.  Unspecific as to what kind of fees, two things are clear.  One, this would cover only a tiny fraction of the proposed $1 trillion worth of funding the bill requires.  Two, one of the main goals of the program is to reduce costs to Americans.  An explanation is needed as to how imposing fees would achieve this goal.  Logic tells us this will increase the industry’s costs, which will translate into higher costs for providers and buyers.  While I’d much rather see fees for them instead of taxes for us, it doesn’t quite fit that fees would help lower costs.

Under the bill, employers will face fines for not offering benefits.  Seems reasonable. However, this will punch small businesses, who do not qualify for much lower group rates that the larger companies get. This should only be included if insurance companies are willing to offer lower cost plans or there is a max limit named that the employers would have to pay into it.  While I’m in favor if this measure, it needs serious revisions to ensure the safety of small businesses.

Also, there is a proposed individual mandate, forcing Americans to buy coverage or face fines.  Fundamentally, this makes a lot of sense.  If more people are buying to it, this should lower everyone’s costs, and it avoides the costs associated with the uninsured going to emergency rooms and not paying the bill, which falls back on the insured.  However, I’m not comfortable with the government forcing me to buy anything.  Many accidents requiring ER visits are covered in other ways: work injuries are usually covered by workman’s comp, car accident injuries are usually covered by the car insurance’s bodily injury benefit.  As far as visits not covered in other ways, this is another issue entirely, having less to do with insurance and more to do with soaring costs of care.  An uninsured person could expect to see a bill of easily a couple thousand dollars.  If these unwarrented prices were lower, we could expect to charge patients at least half the cost at the time they are seen.  Some say this would prevent many people from going to an ER to have necessary or even life saving treatment.  Well I’m sorry.  Life isn’t free, neither are your injuries, get insurance or pay your bills.  Either way, that’s an individual’s choice to make.  The government has no place trying to force us to buy something.  If you pay your taxes, you can’t have someone claiming authority to tell you how to spend the rest of your money.

As for the TV ads scheduled to be airing, we as a people need to demand they be pulled.  Government, and its policies, are not products to be marketed and sold with advertisements.  Organizing for America, Obama’s campaign organization and now an offical member of the National Democratic Party, is refusing to release information concerning the funds and the cost of the ads.  TV advertising should not be allowed to be used during campaigns, and it certainly has no need to show up on my TV during a term to try and persuade me to support something and push my senators to pass it.

During an interview with Nighline (ABC) last night, the President made comments of the effect that we should pay doctors more for thinking and less for doing.  It is a common government outcry that health care is highly inefficient.  Well, take a look around.  Government isn’t doing much better of a job.  In the process of making hurried decisions and uncalculated moves, common sense is being disregarded on many levels.  Between overhauling businesses, becoming a business that cannot be competed against, and tossing hard paid tax dollars, you’ll hear a lot of government trying to tell us what we want, what we need, and sometimes just saying what we want to hear in order to push things through.  One key component is being overlooked.  I’ve long been saying that the sovereign people need to muzzle it, because it has already gotten out of control, only to snowball.  This is just one area, a perfect opportunity for everyone to do just that, right here with the health care bill.  Government needs to do something that the people want and need, instead of constantly telling just what that something is.  This bill needs to be stopped in its tracks, the process slowed down, and it needs to actually be thought through.

Thanks for reading, and don’t forget to do your job as an American.  Contact your congress people, and let’s keep this place the greatest county to live.

Watch the video related to health care reform bill