President Obama has decided, fairly cavalierly (to my eye...ok, I'm a conservative) to nationalize American Health care. Let's face it, budgeting nearly three quarters of a trillion dollars without any stated plan is pretty cavalier. Why is he doing it?
I think that the system, while not broken, can be improved. There is a lot of waste, and let's face it, its damned expensive. There are a lot of Americans who don't have a proper insurance plan, and that is a tragedy. Getting sick without insurance can easily bankrupt one, and certainly that is a common cause of bankruptcy. Further, the cost of insurance is increasing, so business which provide health insurance are being hurt by the costs. So people do suffer, the economy does suffer, and so (I think) Obama is insisting that this is necessary.
Well, where or what do we do with that money to fix things. Well, I would humbly suggest that we do not adopt a national health care plan as adopted by Canada or England...or any number of other nations. Every one of those plans are involved with rationing health care. It takes years to get a, say, Total Hip replacement in Canada. And if you are too old, or too heavy, you won't get it. Barbara Bush (the ex-President's wife) just had a well publicized Aortic Valve Replacement. If you are over the age of 80 in Canada, you don't get that operation. So she would have died. Any number of drugs are rationed...or simply not allowed. And people just die.
Don't misunderstand me...people are going to die. I see it every day. And people make terrible choices and hasten the day of thier death. However, the Government shouldn't be in the position to make that decision. Do you trust the government with your life? I don't. The other feature of Canada, and Germany, and England is that their health-care plan is decompressed by people voluntarily going somewhere else for their health care. Canadians come to the US all the time. Brits and Germans go to India and other countries. Now, you may be thinking that people go to Canada from the US to get inexpensive medicine...they do. However, these are bread-and butter medicines (if you will) which are price-controlled by the Canadian government...after they've been developed in other countries (for the most part). We can talk more about other National Health Care systems later if you want.
Now, one of the suggestions floating around is that we just enroll everyone in the Federal Employee's Health Benefit Plan (FEHB). Now, except for the part where it would cost more than the current program, I love this idea. It really is a free market program, so it may make sense. I am interested in how much it would cost, but basically it offers several insurance plans to Federal employees...they choose the one they want, and the Government pays for it. Great plan. And, it can follow an employee into retirement if they qualify...and most do. This is the care that our President, Senators and Congressmen enjoy. So...impose that, I have no problem. The cost, again, I think, would actually be higher than what we spend now, but it would be fair. Now, keeping in mind that our "leaders" have this plan, we come to one of my problems with health care reform: Any other plan that is imposed that isn't the FEHB, including Medicare (a decidedly inferior plan) means that our "leaders" are imposing a healthcare plan which excludes them. They could (to make a ridiculous comparison) impose a plan that only allows asprin for all diseases. So while the rest of us are dying from high blood pressure or asthma or diabetes, they would have the full panoply of health care available to them. So...Leadership? If you impose a healthcare plan on us...you have to participate, ok? If anyone is interested in this blog ever...we can talk more about that.
Here's what I think we should do: Require every man, woman and child to have a healthcare savings account. Let's say we require $10,000 for everyone. That's not such a terrible burden (well, ok, call it around 3 Trillion dollars). However, that would put $3T in savings plans in the country...which should be a good thing. If you make a certain amount of money...let's use the Obama favorite of more than $250,000 annually, you get partial tax credits to put it in. The more you make the less the credit. Same thing for folks who make less...only the tax credits could blend into actual rebates or simple grants...so everyone gets there.
Then you spend your money for your health care. You pick your doc, you pick your hospital...and you do it with YOUR money. Which means you pick your care based on quality and price. You don't do that now.
And then use the insurance companies and Medicare money to establish a catastrophic healthcare plan to pay off care interventions which cost more than the $10,000. So if you get in a car wreck, or have a heart attack or whatever and get a bill for $100,000...it will be paid. The system will cost less.
We'll talk more later. Tell me what you think!
Jim
