The healthcare problem no one wants to discuss

Contrary to the meme promulgated by the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress, healthcare costs will not decrease due to the implementation of what is known as Obamacare. Rather, the program will do the exact thing that its proponents claim it was supposed to prevent.

Healthcare costs will skyrocket under Obamacare.

A preliminary report issued in February indicated that under the new Obamacare law a health insurance policy for a family of four will cost a whopping $20,000 per year.

Thus, the core motivation for implementing the healthcare law, if one listens to the politicians, was a false one. Obamacare was supposed to lower healthcare costs for everyone, particularly the middle class. It will not happen. And lowering costs was never the real reason for implementing it.

The motivation was control, not costs. Obamacare is designed to control the population, make decisions on who is most cost-effective to treat, and reduce the overload on the system by allowing some people to die, particularly senior adults who are severely ill.

One of the reasons Obamacare will never reduce healthcare costs is that insurance companies are a key component of the plan. This is the core problem of healthcare that no one wants to discuss.

And insurance companies are the main reason for the skyrocketing inflation associated with medical care in the first place. If the insurance industry were removed from healthcare entirely, except for catastrophic illness policies that would kick in only in the case of grossly expensive treatments for longterm catastrophic illness, then regular, day-to-day healthcare would be affordable to all, even without insurance.

If doctors knew that their patients would have to pay out of pocket for most of the care they received, then the costs of that treatment would magically become much more affordable. The insurance industry has driven the high costs of care due to the built in system of a third party payer that takes care of all of the costs, regardless.

The remedy for this dilemma is not a so-called single payer system where government acts as the insurer. Such a system is the very same thing as the third party payer of the insurance industry. And governments all over the world have proved that they are not capable of running their countries' healthcare systems efficiently or effectively.

The only real remedy for the problem of healthcare costs is to remove the third party entirely, whether it be the government or the insurance company. If doctors know they must deal directly with their patients to get paid, the negotiation that will ensue between them and their patients will drastically reduce the price of day to day medical care.

Patients, for example, who currently pay cash to their doctors for care routinely get a hefty discount for doing so.

Many have said through the years that the insurance industry ruined healthcare. To a great degree that is true. The industry has come between patients and their doctors. And nothing, absolutely nothing, should get in the way of the sacred trust that is supposed to exist between a patient and their doctor.

Thus, the only way to stem the skyrocketing costs of healthcare in a free society is to remove the middle man, whether insurance companies or government, and allow patients and doctors to deal with each other over costs. And then a catastrophic illness insurance policy that is reserved only for rare occasions can be offered by insurance companies. This would prevent catastrophic illness from bankrupting patients.

The prospects for implementing such a system are admittedly next to nil. Doctors are paid more under the current system. And patients have been conditioned by the decades of propaganda to believe that insurance is the only way to afford care.

But the nation is facing a trainwreck with over $100 trillion in debt if unfunded liabilities, such as Medicare and Social Security, are added to the $16 trillion the politicians talk about.

This kind of debt load will eventually crush the United States as we know it. To refuse to face the facts or take prudent, drastic steps to address those facts is tantamount to hastening our demise.

Business as usual is not an option.

NOTICE. You may enjoy my blog and its ongoing series, "Musings After Midnight." The following are a few examples:

My latest blog entry in the series, Musings After Midnight, is now available at The Liberty Sphere. It's titled, "I get a vote, you get a vote, all God's children get a vote! That's right, Mr. President, and that includes gun rights activists!"

Also check out: "I'll see you in the war -- Civil War II: Notes on the coming calamity to restore the Constitution."

Visit my ministry site at Martin Christian Ministries.