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Health care reform from an idiots point of view
July 16, 2009 2:34PM
By Joe Wise
I know nothing about health care other than it costs me some money in my paycheck and it gets confusing figuring out some of the forms so i did a bit of learning today.
I am apparently very confused with the health care reform issues that seem to be floating around and seems to be the big issue in Washington D.C. and with the politicians. I decided to do a little research and figure out why it is such a big issue.
Let me stop really quick and say that by a little research I mean very little research... a quick Google search and using info and links off the white house site and Wikipedia. Now I tend to think of myself as a more "balanced" person, if there was a party for common sense I would register for that party. However I am realistic and know on most issues I lean more conservative.
This started pretty much when I said to someone during a conversation (with a liberal), "Well something has to be done, but I don't think government controlled health care is the answer". I was then informed my presumption of what the basic idea of the plan is, even though that is where it will head very quickly. Mark my words on that.
So I went to the White House website to figure out what the plan is currently.. well I didn't find a plan maybe because I was distracted the cool graphics and the shinies but I did find reports for each state's current health care status. I was mortified! Not because of how bad the national health care system is, but by how good it is compared to what people are making it out to be. I literally expected to see uninsured pregnant women and kids arms amputated because they couldn't afford a cast. Okay, Okay maybe not that bad but you see what I mean.
Most state fall between 11 and 19% uninsured with a few 10% or lower. The state with the highest percentage of uninsured it Texas at 25%, followed by New Mexico at 23% and Florida at 21%. My first thought as I'm sure many others first thought was, immigrants inflated those numbers. But I really don't think that our politicians are that silly. But wait here comes some more numbers.
In Texas 75% of the families in those uninsured have at least one full time worker. 32% of the small businesses in Texas offer health care to their employees. New Mexico is fairly similar with 70% of uninsured families have a full time worker and 35% of small businesses offer coverage. Florida is a mirror for the other two, 73% of uninsured have a full time worker and 39% of small businesses there offer coverage. This suggests that some full time workers do not take the insurance their employer does offer. I work with a few of those people, I know it happens.
Now this is pure speculation on my part and is completely made up by me. But it would not surprise me that some of these small businesses that do not offer coverage have illegals working for them and couldn't get health care through an insurance company to begin with. I am not saying that this is the case but it sure wouldn't surprise me.
There are certain groups of people in most states that get some "free" coverage as well in form of welfare, In my state any family who does not have insurance can get it for their children if they meet the income requirements and chances are most of the uninsured do. Are these people included in the uninsured? What about those who get health care through tribal affiliations are they included in the uninsured? I wouldn't think so but it maybe something they did not think of. In my state I bet the uninsured percentage would drop a point or two.
As far as premium costs, the average seems to be between $10,000 and $15,000 per year for families. It seems to me in many cases that the premium cost would be more than what a full time employee would make on minimum wage. That doesn't seem right now does it. Those nasty insurance people are bleeding us dry!!! Hold on there just a minute, are they really? They are in the business to make money.
Heath care costs have gone up dramatically for a number of reasons, in order for insurance companies to make up for this they have few options. Increase premiums, increase the co-pays and reduce their work force. None of these sound very good options. So how do you get insurance companies to halt or possibly reduce their fees? Simple get health care providers to reduce their fees.
Wait now, with all the complaining about the cost of health care and the number of uninsured I've heard very little about provider fees except for a few small comments. How can we reduce the cost of health care? I'm not expert on this but I do know that some of the simplest procedures and prescriptions are very expensive. Reducing the cost to the insurance company for these would be a great step. Imposing more restrictions for malpractice lawsuits would help reduce the insurance all doctors carry. More doctors, nurses and health care professionals would also help create some competition in the market. More competition means lower prices. In order to get more people into health care there would need to be a push to get people through the schooling which in it self can be very expensive.
While I don't have the answer, you can see where this is going. We do not need to institute a nation wide insurance program that would hurt the insurance companies. There are other options the government can take to help reduce the cost of insurance so more people can get better health care with out putting the country into more debt or creating new taxes.
Giving the country more control over your personal life, in this case via health care gives the government more power to tell you what you can and cannot do. Correct me if I'm wrong here but that goes against everything this country stands for, Conservative and Liberal alike.
Sources:
Healthreform.gov
Wikipedia.org