Health care and politics: you pay either way

August 6, 12:45 PMHealth Care ExaminerDoctor Lissa

Previous Next

2 comments Print Email RSS Subscribe

Subscribe

Get alerts when there is a new article from the Health Care Examiner. Read Examiner.com's terms of use.

Email Address   Include other special offers from Examiner.com Terms of Use

 

We know about Paris Hilton's energy policy now.  Oddly enough, it sounds reasonable.  We haven't heard yet what she would recommend regarding health care, so until Ms. Hilton decides to share her plan with us, we'll have to focus on the major candidates views as we know them.

The major difference between Obama and McCain is that Obama wants to use the government as a lever to aid those without health insurance and McCain wants to rely more heavily on free-market forces.  That's it. 

Why do you care?  Well, if you don't have insurance, you might want some.  If you do have insurance, you want everyone else to have some so you don't have to pay for their care.  (By the way, you are paying now whether you know it or not). 

Outraged?  Didn't know this?  Well, don't beat yourself up.  It's one of the hidden secrets we don't like to tell.  The fact is that all health care has a cost.  Someone has to pay for everything. That someone is either the American tax payer ( most likely) and/or those who have insurance and the companies that provide it for their workers (a shrinking percentage of businesses).

If you are a business and provide health insurance to your employees, it costs more to buy it each year  in part because costs are passed on to you for those who are not in the system but are accessing services.  You in turn, pass those costs to your employees because you don't want to pay the costs and hurt the bottom line.  Therefore, the worker or employee pays more each year for the same or for reduced coverage.  (More about how that works later).

Of course, if payment comes from public funds, you pay as a result of increased taxes.  That's easy enough to figure out. 

So back to my point, when some people don't have health insurance, we all pay since they are coming for care whether they have money  or coverage or not.   This is because health care is a business and business is all about money.  Someone will pay for services rendered.  And that means those of us with coverage.  So, bottom line, we want everyone to have it.

Another reason you want everyone to have coverage is because sick people go to the same grocery stores, sporting events, schools and churches as those who are not sick.  Your children play with them.  You eat in restaurants where they work or dine and play at the same parks.  As a society, it is important that everyone be as healthy as possible so we all can remain that way.  Having healthcare coverage for the uninsured makes your life better exponentially.

What about forcing people to have some kind of coverage?  Isn't that un-American.  I don't happen to think so.  I mean we're not talking about a Cadillac plan here, just a Yugo.  Everyone would have basic insurance, not insurance that covers elective surgery or other nonessential services.  One reason you want everyone to have basic coverage is because there are some people who will not get insurance when they could because they actually want you to pay for them.  They figure if it's not mandatory, they'll just freeload off everyone else and save the money they would spend otherwise on other stuff.  So we can't really let people choose not to have basic care unless we deteremine that we can deny them care when they go in to the ER like we deny them services at the grocery store or clothing store for lack of money.  And this is against the law and not defensible in a civilized society.

So we really can't get away from mandating basic health insurance for everyone, since the rest of us still end up paying and this is really getting expensive!  I know this sounds cynical but I have over 30 years experience in this business and I have seen too much to believe otherwise.

So that's my perspective.  Next time we'll discuss what the major candidates suggest.  Unless, of course, Ms. Hilton wants to weigh in on this one too.