Many of us have this dream that we could have less government in our lives and a better quality of life at the same time. Seems silly doesn’t it? When you look at it objectively, we give the government a lot of money with our taxes. The only thing we need in life from government is a good, safe life and the ability to exercise our freedom.
To have this we need a proper education, good health, safety and the ability to move freely throughout the country at will. This translates into needs for police and fire protection, good schools, protection from our enemies by the military and good health care. If those things were the only things government concerned itself with there would be no reason why Americans could not enjoy good laws, education, health care, highways, parks and recreation facilities—all paid for by the government via our taxes—and our government would probably have money left over. I realize that this is not what we have.
In the case of our national health care we are way behind the curve and our representatives at both state and federal levels are still thinking inside the box. This is bad, very bad. The U.S. is the last democracy that hasn’t yet gone to national health care and we are nowhere near the top 25 on the list of countries with the best quality of national health. Everyone in congress knows this and both political parties are trying to come up with plans to fix our ailing national health care system. The trouble is that nobody is trying to fix this problem. They are looking at this situation all wrong. What they are trying to do is change our current system so that everyone can have affordable health insurance. Looking at our health care crisis from that point of view will produce no better result than continuing to fix an old, broken down piece of machinery instead of replacing it with a new one.
Changing things around so that everyone can afford health insurance will not address the problem. It will not fix the problems that arise when people lose their job while members of their families are going through complicated or expensive on-going medical treatments. Nor will it fix things so that people can have a needed operation that they cannot pay for. Today, nobody gets health care unless they can pay for it—even if it means they will die if they don’t get the treatment. Under the insurance system many people will have their health care interrupted while a family member who just lost their job scrapes and scrambles to find other employment. No matter what fix congress comes up with that includes insurance, that type of problem will not be addressed because in most cases the health insurance probably comes from having the job in the first place. Once the job is gone, so is the insurance. And don’t even think of Cobra. That is simply a way for you to keep your health coverage at three times the original price while you no longer have an income to pay for it.
Insurance is not the solution, it is the problem. We will not get our health care system fixed by changing the cost of our insurance. What we need to do is take the profit out of the health care industry. As a business, insurance companies have to make a profit. In order for there to be profit people must pay enough for the insurance company to provide the health care and have some funds left over after the health care has been provided. This simply cannot happen if everyone’s health care is provided for. Insurance companies don’t make money by providing for people’s medical needs, they make money by not covering them. Did you notice that statement above? “Enough for the insurance company to provide the health care.” That is just it. The insurance companies are really just middlemen. Medical coverage should come from medical professionals, not insurance companies. Letting insurance companies get involved in individual health care played a significant role in the escalation of health care costs in the first place.
Medical care cost increases have outpaced inflation all along. At no time since the introduction of insurance into our health care system has inflation outpaced rising health care costs. If the government really wants to address our health care problems it should bring about national health care and cut the insurance industry completely out of the picture. The system needs an amputation. Only then will it be possible for families to continue to get health care while one or both of the bread winners are out of work.
National health care would fix a number of problems. It would remove from any business's bottom line the need to provide health insurance for their employees. In a large corporation this would be an enormous savings, but in a small business it could make the difference between surviving the start up period and failing to become a viable concern. And we would no longer need to fund Medicare and Medicaid, since national health care would provide for everyone. (Many doctors don't take Medicare or Medicaid anyway.) It would also reduce the cost of health care by at least as much as whatever the profit is. This means that our national health care would be more affordable for the many, than it now is for the few. Since with national health care everyone would receive care, there would be no uninsured people flocking to emergency rooms for the care they cannot afford, which is another factor that drives costs up in our current system. Yet there are still profits.
Changing our system, not altering it, is the cure. Altering things so that more people can afford health insurance isn’t even humane, really. That type of improvement cannot possibly include everyone; it will simply include more than are included now. There will inevitably be some who are left out. Profit is not maximized unless some are denied coverage, and as businesses all insurance companies are responsible to their shareholders for maximized profits. As long as people can be denied coverage for any reason at all, some will die because of the inadequacies of our system. National health care will have some weaknesses, surely, but it can hardly be worse than what we have now. Sadly, judging by the way things are going in congress this type of change doesn’t look likely in the near future.
To have this we need a proper education, good health, safety and the ability to move freely throughout the country at will. This translates into needs for police and fire protection, good schools, protection from our enemies by the military and good health care. If those things were the only things government concerned itself with there would be no reason why Americans could not enjoy good laws, education, health care, highways, parks and recreation facilities—all paid for by the government via our taxes—and our government would probably have money left over. I realize that this is not what we have.
In the case of our national health care we are way behind the curve and our representatives at both state and federal levels are still thinking inside the box. This is bad, very bad. The U.S. is the last democracy that hasn’t yet gone to national health care and we are nowhere near the top 25 on the list of countries with the best quality of national health. Everyone in congress knows this and both political parties are trying to come up with plans to fix our ailing national health care system. The trouble is that nobody is trying to fix this problem. They are looking at this situation all wrong. What they are trying to do is change our current system so that everyone can have affordable health insurance. Looking at our health care crisis from that point of view will produce no better result than continuing to fix an old, broken down piece of machinery instead of replacing it with a new one.
Changing things around so that everyone can afford health insurance will not address the problem. It will not fix the problems that arise when people lose their job while members of their families are going through complicated or expensive on-going medical treatments. Nor will it fix things so that people can have a needed operation that they cannot pay for. Today, nobody gets health care unless they can pay for it—even if it means they will die if they don’t get the treatment. Under the insurance system many people will have their health care interrupted while a family member who just lost their job scrapes and scrambles to find other employment. No matter what fix congress comes up with that includes insurance, that type of problem will not be addressed because in most cases the health insurance probably comes from having the job in the first place. Once the job is gone, so is the insurance. And don’t even think of Cobra. That is simply a way for you to keep your health coverage at three times the original price while you no longer have an income to pay for it.
Insurance is not the solution, it is the problem. We will not get our health care system fixed by changing the cost of our insurance. What we need to do is take the profit out of the health care industry. As a business, insurance companies have to make a profit. In order for there to be profit people must pay enough for the insurance company to provide the health care and have some funds left over after the health care has been provided. This simply cannot happen if everyone’s health care is provided for. Insurance companies don’t make money by providing for people’s medical needs, they make money by not covering them. Did you notice that statement above? “Enough for the insurance company to provide the health care.” That is just it. The insurance companies are really just middlemen. Medical coverage should come from medical professionals, not insurance companies. Letting insurance companies get involved in individual health care played a significant role in the escalation of health care costs in the first place.
Medical care cost increases have outpaced inflation all along. At no time since the introduction of insurance into our health care system has inflation outpaced rising health care costs. If the government really wants to address our health care problems it should bring about national health care and cut the insurance industry completely out of the picture. The system needs an amputation. Only then will it be possible for families to continue to get health care while one or both of the bread winners are out of work.
National health care would fix a number of problems. It would remove from any business's bottom line the need to provide health insurance for their employees. In a large corporation this would be an enormous savings, but in a small business it could make the difference between surviving the start up period and failing to become a viable concern. And we would no longer need to fund Medicare and Medicaid, since national health care would provide for everyone. (Many doctors don't take Medicare or Medicaid anyway.) It would also reduce the cost of health care by at least as much as whatever the profit is. This means that our national health care would be more affordable for the many, than it now is for the few. Since with national health care everyone would receive care, there would be no uninsured people flocking to emergency rooms for the care they cannot afford, which is another factor that drives costs up in our current system. Yet there are still profits.
Changing our system, not altering it, is the cure. Altering things so that more people can afford health insurance isn’t even humane, really. That type of improvement cannot possibly include everyone; it will simply include more than are included now. There will inevitably be some who are left out. Profit is not maximized unless some are denied coverage, and as businesses all insurance companies are responsible to their shareholders for maximized profits. As long as people can be denied coverage for any reason at all, some will die because of the inadequacies of our system. National health care will have some weaknesses, surely, but it can hardly be worse than what we have now. Sadly, judging by the way things are going in congress this type of change doesn’t look likely in the near future.
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