Dr. Sam?
On Wednesday, President Obama spoke to a joint session of Congress regarding health care reform. His administration is proposing a $900 billion complete makeover of our system in order to insure all Americans, regardless of their ability to pay or the presence of a pre-existing condition. Two of the most controversial aspects of the plan include the number of uninsured as well as how to pay for such a massive entitlement program.
President Obama repeatedly refers to 50 million uninsured Americans. A Census bureau report in 2006 noted that 32 million of those are “temporarily” uninsured, likely people in-between jobs or health care providers. Those people were put in both the insured and uninsured categories. That means the actual number of uninsured is really around 18 million, and there is some debate as to whether 10 million illegal immigrants are part of that 18. Assuming they are, the end result would be turning things upside down for only 8 million people, or less than 3% of the country’s legal population.
As for cost, the President noted that “most” of the $900 billion price tag would be paid through the elimination of waste and gained efficiencies within the health care system. Medicare fraud estimates alone reach $30 billion per year. If the government knows there is waste and how much, how come they have not moved on that before now? It is simply not realistic to believe that an entity that has created and allowed waste and fraud is capable of eliminating it.
So what is the true problem with health care? If it is insurance, why is a sweeping overhaul to the entire system necessary? When you have a clog in one of your sinks, do you try and fix the clog or replace your entire house? We have 1,300 private insurance companies in this country yet we need a government-ran corporation to provide “choice and competition”? 1,300 and one choices will bring costs down?
Here are three solutions that many experts (i.e., those who are not career politicians or lawyers) are proposing – one, removing restrictions that prevent insurance companies from competing across state lines. We are in this mess largely because of bad regulation – special interest groups petitioning state lawmakers to limit choice. Eliminating those barriers would force companies in more regulated states to lower their prices or go out of business.
The second would be to view health insurance like we do term-life insurance. Instead of buying it on a short-term, year-by-year basis, some are suggesting policies in which you purchase insurance on a 30 year contractual basis, where rates are fixed and not subject to “pre-existing conditions”.
Finally, we must have tort reform. Doctors today have to pay upwards of six figures for medical liability insurance and spend an estimated 30% of their time dealing with insurance companies. Does that come out of their bottom line? No, it is passed onto the consumer.
Where do you stand on the issue? Should health care be reformed using private sector, marketplace solutions or handed over to the government?
