Healthcare Reform: It's certainly a coincidence that I have to go through this medical clearance process on the cusp of the biggest health care reform in the last century. For anyone that has been following the legislation process for health care reform, you understand how heated the debate has been on both sides of the "aisle" for the past few months to a year. These days, I consider myself more of an independent who leans on the side of the democrats for most issues, except for issues tied to the economy, which seems to be most things lately. First and foremost, I do believe that GUARANTEED health care is our moral OBLIGATION (sorry for the caps), and even more so, a standard of health care for all is required, but like anything, reform must be SUSTAINABLE. The health care system in the US has been broken for decades. Insurance companies have monopolized the industry, and costs have risen to a point that health care just isn't affordable. My biggest problem with the health care reform bill is that it didn't do anything for the actual cost of it. I do believe now that it is guaranteed, the rising cost of healthcare will now be burdened on the tax payer. I would rather have seen all that energy in debate from our leaders go towards coming up with a sustainable plan for health care reform. One question, what's to stop currently healthy people from opting out of health insurance and now only getting it when they are sick? There is a small fine, but the reality is, its nowhere near the amount you would save by doing so. Imagine if you could get car insurance to fix your car after it has been in a wreck, or fire insurance after your house has burned down. This would cripple the private health insurance industry. Further, with the rising cost of health care, and health care now assuming its place as 1/3rd of our GDP, our national debt further becomes an issue of national security. The US heavily relies on short term financing, most of which comes from China and other countries who invest in our treasuries. We will have to pay that back at some point, and when we do, we will realize we can't continue to fund health care, our military, or many of our other necessities. Look at what happened to the Soviet Union.
What do I believe is a solution to health care. A true free market system (we can argue that there is no true free market system), but something that is close to it.
1.) Start pulling away from an employee based system. Give the individual his health insurance cost back as income, and give the tax payer a tax credit for health related costs during the year.
2.) Pay for preventative health care and basic procedures out of pocket, allowing the individual the choice as to what works for them. Allow us to get insurance for major procedures, similar to how insurance is run for other items like car, house, etc.
- This would drive costs down to a level that is affordable by most Americans. You can take eye laser surgery and cosmetic surgery as examples of out of pocket procedures that have decreased in price tremendously over the past few years due to an update in technology and basic supply/demand theory.
- This would also allow the govt. to guarantee health care for those that make less than a certain amount of money in an affordable and sustainable way.
3.) Include measures/protections to prevent against discrimination on preexisting conditions.
4.) Allow for more flexibility in doctor licenses and ability to practice out of state. Same with insurance companies, allow the individual to choose from multiple companies whether in state or out of state (this is addressed in the current bill)
There are other things that would need to be included, but I'm far from an expert on the subject, those are just some ideas that I've seen proposed that I believe would work.
For more information, or if you want to go through the entire bill, go to this link http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h3200/text
Anyways, until later!
