Citizen pressure forces Congress to re-think health care reform

             U.S. Capitol where decisions should be made.

Unrelenting pressure from concerned citizens over the August break is forcing Congress and the administration to re-think health care reform legislation. At the very least it appears that the “public option” will be removed from the final bill. This is a victory for the electorate but it is only one battle, the war continues.

Simply removing the public option from the legislation still leaves a hopelessly muddled mess of a bill that won't do much of anything towards resolving the health care problems in the United States. The House bill does a good job of pandering to special interests but leaves the heavy lifting to some other Congress and/or the unelected bureaucracy.

We can do better than this. This is the United States of America, We can fix anything once we set our minds to it. To effectively deal with the health care problems in the country we need to take a hard look at the underlying problems with health care in the country.

Tort Reform. There can be no meaningful health care legislation without addressing tort reform. It's not just excessive jury awards that are a concern here. Doctors are burdened with exceptionally high malpractice insurance premiums and in response they are forced to take preventative measures. They order unneeded tests and procedures, prescribe unnecessary medications in an attempt to preempt legal action.

Estimates range from 10 – 20 % of health care costs are consumed in defensive medicine. We can reduce prices and lower insurance premiums with a little careful consideration here. Simply establishing reasonable caps on “pain and suffering” awards will go a long way to reducing your health care bills.

The Uninsured. What is the real number of uninsured in the country? It's not 47 million (the high estimate) and it's not 8 million (the low estimate). The real number is somewhere in between those two extremes. Congress should take the time to accurately gauge the size and scope of the problem and then take some more time to figure out an effective means of providing insurance to the chronically uninsured. Simply mandating that all Americans must have insurance and leaving it up to somebody else to figure out how to accomplish that lofty goal won't cut it.

Undocumented Aliens. The United States has to get serious about the flood of illegal aliens entering this country through our porous borders. When medical care is needed, illegal aliens and the uninsured go to hospital emergency rooms where they cannot be refused treatment. It costs 4 to 5 times as much to deliver medical care through an emergency room than it does with a standard office visit.

The continued neglect of the problem of illegal immigration is costing us a lot in tax dollars. Here again, estimates range from 10 – 20 % of health care costs are incurred on emergency room care for non-emergency situations. We can't just keep ignoring the problem of illegal aliens and hope it goes away – it won't.

Insurance Reform. Much work needs to be done here, and there are many proposals out there for insurance reform. Replacing a failing regulatory system with a brand new one, leaving the actual decisions until later is not a good solution. Congress ought to take the time to look deeply into insurance delivery in the U.S., find the problem areas - excessive executive compensation isn't one of them - and fix the problems. This is the job of Congress, not an unelected unaccountable bureaucrat in Washington D.C.

SLOW DOWN. Where's the rush? Far better for Congress to take a year or two to figure out how to do this right, than to slap together some hodge-podge of this-and-that that doesn't adequately address the issues. In the recent past we've seen a couple rush jobs rammed through Congress – TARP, the stimulus bill – which don't work well and are loaded with problems. We don't need this kind of hurry-up-and-pass-it legislation when it comes to something as intensely personal as our individual medical needs.

We elect our Senators and Representatives to make the tough decisions for us. Isn't it time they started doing just that? The current bill puts off all the heavy lifting to the numerous new and expanded Federal agencies created by the legislation. Pfui. We can't continue to let Congress get away with this. Especially not for something that consume so large a share of the economy and affects each and every one of us in profoundly personal ways.

Keep the pressure up. As Yogi Bera said, “It isn't over 'till it's over.” We may have won a battle but the war still rages. It is essential that we force Congress to get this done right the first time.
 

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