Health Insurance Part 2

Well, it's taken me a while to do this follow-up, mostly because I've been very swamped at work and I've spent a bunch of time comment on the bluegrass blog of Mando Mama. But, to me, this whole health care issue is important so I did want to get back to it.

John McCain favors continuing health care as is. He likes the private system we have now and says that he believes those who can pay for health care should pay for it. In other words, the whole "personal responsibility" mantra of the Republican party. Government shouldn't pay for health care for you if you can afford to pay for it yourself. Well, let's look at a couple of flaws in that argument.

First of all, most people who talk about universal health care with even a modicum of intelligence are not suggesting the government provide health care for free. At my previous job, I paid about $850 per month for health care for my wife and I. That's a little over $10,000 per year. Plus we still had small co-pays for office visits and meds. Now that I work for a larger company, health care is cheaper. I pay about $150 per month for an HSA plan but we are also responsible for the first $3,000 of any health care expenses. Last year all our health care cam out of our own pocket because we didn't come close to approaching the insurance kick-in. So now I'm obligated to pay about $5,000 a year before insurance helps me out. Now, if I'm going to pay $5,000 - $10,000 per year for health insurance anyway, then I say I'd rather pay that amount to the federal government as a tax increase, get a health ID card, and never have to worry about doctor bills, shopping for insurance, and only seeing certain providers again.

People say they don't want universal health care because the government would have to fund it through increased taxes. So what? What's the difference? So right now you pay 20% of you income to taxes and then another $5,000 - $10,000 to some insurance company. So why not pay 22% in taxes and no money to the insurance companies? In the end, what's the difference? And if you want efficiency, having one "company" in the form of the government be the insurance provider is certainly more efficient than having hundreds of private insurers with multiple plans that you can't truly compare, with multiple non-standard rules for both patients and doctors. People say that the government is inefficient and wasteful and they point to Medicare and Medicaid fraud as examples. But ask any doctor about the wastefulness of having to employ teams of people to do their billing and comply with the myriad different forms, rules, and standards of private insurers. Yes, the government can be wasteful but this could be, if we wanted it to be, controlled to a better extent than it is today.

Frankly, I'm not saying universal health care is a panacea. There would be problems. There would be waste and administrative overhead. But people who don't think we have those problems in the current system are just plain ignorant of the facts. What we do know is that in the current system 40 million people don't have insurance. That's pretty pathetic for a country whose citizens are always going on and on about children being our future and the need to help those who can't help themselves. Is this just talk or do we believe it?

I also have to take issue with Senator McCain's notion that those who can afford health care should pay for it. Well, I do pay for it. But I also pay for the health care of many others. No one helps me pay for my own health care but money is still deducted from my paycheck on top of that to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. Well, if I'm just supposed to pay for my own health care, then I want to stop paying into those systems. If they're so inefficient, then why do I want my tax dollars going there? If Republicans are all about personal responsibility, shouldn't I get to decide where my money goes? Hmm...how about we pay no taxes and then just decide what government agencies we want to give our money to? That's personal responsibility.

I know that's an extreme example but it's hard for me to stomach a Senator whose health care is paid by me telling me that I need to also keep paying into a private system that I think is broke. I say we all pay into a big pool and we all share in the services. We do this for defense, the space program, interstate highways, and other federal services. We don't deny defense to people who can't pay for it. Why do we do this with health care?