A recent American Thinker article has prompted me to offer a few thoughts on health care reform. Here’s an excerpt from the article:
Often it’s not the patient’s fault that he has a preexisting condition (although one could argue this in cases of AIDS or lung cancer or cardiovascular disease secondary to smoking). At the same time, it’s not everyone else’s fault, either. Mandating same-cost coverage for preexisting conditions is not insurance. It is, in fact, public welfare, and it could be managed more effectively, efficiently, and affordably independent of the insurance industry that serves most of the population.
With regard to preexisting conditions, let’s be careful what we wish for. No doubt, under the recently passed health care reform, insurance premiums will soon be going up as we are all forced to pay for high-risk patients.
If state governments really want to help, there should be programs to deal with such high-risk patients who cannot receive charity or any other form of local assistance. We would still be paying (in the form of state taxes) but the entitlement would be better understood for what it was—forced charity—and as most states must have balanced budgets by law, taxpayers would really feel the cost of the entitlement/charity programs. This would create a better chance for taxpayer oversight of the cost… as opposed to having a huge federal bureaucracy backed by unlimited national debt and very limited accountability.
Another excerpt from American Thinker:
What politicians fail to recognize is that benefits paid by private insurance subsidize the underpayments from Medicare and Medicaid. When there is no longer a private insurance industry to shift costs to, severe shortages in the availability of health care will emerge. We’re already seeing an increasing number of physicians who are opting out of accepting Medicare. Walgreens in the state of Washington is no longer accepting new Medicaid patients.
There is no reason (or constitutional authority) for the federal government to mandate or interfere with personal health care. Wouldn’t it be better for the various states and private enterprises to tackle the issue in their own way and see which methods work best? I’m tired of hearing how successful the large federal entitlement programs have been. Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are clearly unsustainable in their present forms. If not for continuing federal deficits, taxpayers long ago would have grown tired of the increasing taxes it would’ve taken to keep all those entitlements adequately funded.
More from American Thinker:
At the same time, the insurance industry is not guiltless. Insurers should not be able to cancel insurance coverage for those patients who suddenly find that they need the benefits for which they have paid. The insurance industry has also played a huge role in establishing the third-party-payer, comprehensive-coverage paradigm which has served as the single greatest driver of increased health care costs.
No doubt some insurance reform is needed, but a big government takeover just kills any creative solutions before they are ever born. Medical malpractice reform (tort reform), individual tax credits for medical coverage (as opposed to business tax credits), more open competition among insurance companies, health savings accounts, and more creative local programs and charities would be much more effective and manageable solutions. The current law addresses none of these adequately and, frankly, does little to control cost at all, it merely creates a confusing way of redistributing the cost.
Here’s a link to the full article:
American Thinker A Look at Preexisting Conditions
Hats off to Minnesota Congresswoman Michele Bachmann for forming the Tea Party Caucus. After more than a year of trying to be heard, the American people finally do appear to have the ear of Congress (or at least a small portion of Congress). As Ms. Bachmann says, “We are not the mouthpiece, we’re the earpiece.”
