Steve,
I have no illusions that healthcare will ever get fixed but it does not mean that I won’t put up a fight. Politics, money or both seem to always get in the way. Politicians will never make the hard choices that need to be made.
Our country was founded as a representative republic, not a democracy, and it was the most successful nation that ever existed in history. Today we are a socialist democracy slipping fast into a socialistic fascist form of government with less and less freedoms every day. The country has been drifting into a socialist society over the last 100 years and history tells me that it will never ever get back to where it was without a total collapse of the economy. This has always happened to all true democratic forms of government. Not one has ever been successful on the long term because of self-serving greed. They always destroy themselves, from within, in about 200 years and I feel we are no exception.
People do not learn from history. We are no longer a free enterprise based country and have slowly subjected ourselves to more and more government interference and control. This only drives up the cost of everything, as government produces nothing and is a leach upon the producers of society. That is why the founders formed a government with very few powers and minimum intrusion. Most of these limitations of power in the constitution have been ignored over the last 100 years.
The more that is delegated to the government the less freedom and wealth the citizens will have. I have clearly seen this reduction of freedoms and wealth in my lifetime. When I was growing up, in the average household, one parent worked and the other took care of the home front. Today it takes two people working one or more jobs to pay the bills while the standard of living is declining. It is much harder for my children to make a living than it was for me when I was young. This happened because our government at all levels was taking more and more money from the producers of society and giving it to someone else. This is the same story over and over in history.
We now are in very big trouble with the debt and other obligations our congress have put on us. Our country is financially insolvent due to greed, past spending practices and un-funded social programs and we just can’t afford healthcare for everyone. This is just the cold hard fact. Government has never been efficient at anything and more of it will just make things worse. Government is the problem not the solution and interference with the citizens at all levels plus the lawyers have driven up healthcare cost to the extent it is unsustainable. My doctor told me that he has to have two employees just to take care of paperwork for the work he does and that is just a start. He loses money on every Medicare or Medicaid patient plus others he sees and has to shift those costs to those that have better insurance coverage. He told me on my last visit that he would quit his practice if this health care bill gets passed and he is in his 40’s.
The whole system is rigged to shift costs from those that can pay to those that can’t. This is the main reason medicine and health insurance costs so much. As to your references to price controls, just remember the gas lines of the 70’s. They were caused by Carters price controls. It would be the same for medicine if implemented. Just like communism, it sounds good in theory but has never ever worked and always ends with disaster for the people. If we had a real competitive free market we would not have these high costs. The cost shifting has to stop or we will never get this fixed.
I believe we will have a total financial collapse in the near future if very unpleasant real changes are not made quickly. This is what I would do to turn around the country and health care:
1. Ban the Federal government from all health related programs including Medicare and Medicaid and relegate them back to the states. These programs would have to have modifications to eligible retirement age with reduced benefits.
2. Require all insurance companies be able to do business in any state under uniform laws. This would require modification of state laws to make uniform laws in all states. By the way, the current profit margin for the health insurance industry is less than 5%. Way less than other businesses and no government could operate on that slim margin.
3. Require all insurance companies that write health insurance to insure anyone that applied and not be able to drop those that got sick with the same uniform rates for everyone. Anyone that does not have insurance and needs medical care would be financially responsible for the bill with no government backup other than bankruptcy. This would economically force most people to buy insurance thus reducing policy costs.
4. Pass true tort reform like Mississippi or Texas that applies to all states to eliminate frivolous lawsuits.
5. Make health savings accounts available to everyone though state payroll withholding.
Again, I have no delusions that these things will ever be done but I do know some day we will look back and wish we did.
Darrel
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