Steve Blow and Sam Johnson both address our current health insurance crisis, but from different angles. Blow, in The Dallas Morning News, reports how his wife switched from her husband's employer's policy to her own employer's policy and was subjected to months of red tape rigmarole. Blow concludes:
"We're in the midst of a great debate over reforming our health care system. And I know that change is scary. But frankly, I'm not that big a fan of what we've got now."Blow has it exactly right. Health insurance in this country is mired in insurance company bureaucracy. As infuriatingly complex and redundant and repetitive much of the insurance paper chase is, it's business for the insurance companies. Getting rid of it means getting rid of a revenue source for them, so expect them to fight change and fight to preserve the existing system. Which is what they are doing.
Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), according to a The Dallas Morning News Neighbors story, takes issue with Democratic plans to place an employer and individual mandate on Americans to have health insurance. He argues:
"If you like your health care plan, you should be able to keep it. Surely we can make health insurance more affordable, more accessible and more available without the government taking over the health care industry and Big Brother bulling people and employers. In essence, the Democrats are telling the American people that they must have health insurance -- or else. That's not right."Johnson does three things in this short paragraph to mislead his constituents.
First, notice how Johnson implies that Democrats are threatening to take away your private health insurance. In truth, they are offering to give everyone the same opportunity that those with insurance already enjoy, although "enjoy" isn't the right word as Steve Blow's earlier comments explain.
Second, notice how Johnson says we can make health insurance more affordable and accessible. Don't expect solutions from Johnson. If he had any, they would already be in place. Johnson was in the Congressional majority for a decade and didn't do what he says we can do now. Instead of offering a plan to do that now, he obstructs those who are trying to do something now.
Last, he says requiring everyone to have health insurance is not right. Why not? Everyone will get emergency medical treatment when he or she is in a car accident or suffers a heart attack, whether or not he had the foresight to have health insurance or not. President Bush in 2007 even argued that that emergency rooms constitute a form of health insurance for all. Why is it wrong to require that everyone pays for it?
8 comments:
Your Democrat leanings is showing big time!
"Anonymous" at 7/21/2009 6:28 AM, thanks for the feedback. Politics is definitely playing a big part in the debate in Washington. Sam Johnson's comments are evidence of that.
Ed, Thanks for the local coverage. It concerns me that everyone is debating the cost/effectiveness/affordability of health insurance - not health care.
Health insurance is fundamentally broken, as you explain above. Yet, our lawmakers seem preoccupied with providing insurance for everyone.
Let's focus on the right question: why do we spend more per capita on health care than any other nation, but have the the 37th healthiest population?
Matt Johnson, thanks for the feedback. You're right that our country is facing a crisis in health care, not just health insurance. President Obama knows this. He has avoided appearing to dictate the details of the health care reform bill being worked out by Congress, but he has insisted that the bill address three broad areas: availability of health insurance, cost of health care and quality of health care. He wants to see improvements on all three fronts.
"Why is it wrong to require that everyone pays for it?"
And thats exactly what WON'T happen. We already have payroll taxes that distribute wealth from one group of people to another. We already have a tax code that sends refunds back to people who pay 0 taxes. Tell me how your last sentence will apply to 100% of all people.
As for your interpretation of Johnson's threat of "taking people's insurance away from them", what happens when private companies cannot adequately compete against the government's option?
The government can print more money to cover their liabilities.... private companies cannot. I believe the compelling argument that was not stated in your post was that the introduction of a government system would result in private insurance companies getting out of the business. This would result in loss of coverage for those individuals insured through those companies. In addition, what will employers decide to do when they can avoid paying a portion of the employee's insurance by dropping all insurance coverage?
Few are happy with the current system, but rushing to find another imperfect solution is not the answer. Especially when the proposed solution creates yet another payroll tax that saps the responsible portion of the population.
Andy, you're right. There are some people who cannot afford health insurance. That's not going to change. I'm willing to subsidize them. You aren't. We disagree there.
But the people I meant when I said "all" are the ones who can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it, perhaps because they think they are young and healthy and it's a waste of money. Yet when they get hit by a bus, they'll want medical treatment, even if it's beyond their ability to pay. Because none of us can know when we're going to get hit by a bus (or contract cancer), I'm willing to impose a mandate on all who can afford it that they pay for insurance *before* they need the care. You're not willing to impose such a mandate. We disagree there.
The argument that, under health care reform, private employers are going to quit offering employee health insurance is upside down. Corporations have been cutting back on employee health insurance, pensions, and practically every other employee benefit for years now. The proposed health care reform addresses that by requiring employers to offer health insurance, either their own plan or by paying into the government option. For the first time, employers won't be able to drop this benefit without making up for it another way. So, your concern is actually an argument in favor of the proposed health care reforms, not against them.
By the way, "rushing" to reform health care is hardly accurate. The health care problem has been festering for decades.
Ed,
When I referred to companies, I was referring to the insurance companies themselves. Employers will have no choice but to drop insurance coverage when they no longer have any vendors from which to purchase insurance.
Employers currently use insurance as a incentive for employment (at least in my field). Salary, 401k, insurance, and other perks are all on the table when you negotiate.
Given the choice between a dwindling pool of vendors or the government, I think we can safely say companies will go with the government. That is what I would call a reduction in choice.
The term 'rushing' is rather apt in this case. Have you read the bill in its entirety? Has any member of congress? Has the POTUS? And yet there is this massive push to get this done before the recess. Damn the torpedoes!!!! full steam ahead!
Ed, when someone chooses to forgo insurance, that means they are responsible for the full amount of their medical bills. If someone is hit by a bus, and ends up in the emergency room, they still get billed. Payment plans are useful for people in those situations.
People could purchase low cost catastrophic illness policies to take care of things like cancer, heart surgery, etc. Everyone does not need to buy comprehensive plans if they are willing to take responsibility for the costs themselves. In fact, for most people, HSAs or savings could handle most of their health expenses.
Basically we've reached a point where you have a class of people (you and people like you) that have decided that they know what's best for everyone. What qualifies you to decide what I do with my earnings? What qualifies you to control my life?
Andy, you want us to believe that private companies can't compete with the government? Tell that to FedEx and UPS. If the private health insurance companies can't do better than the federal government, maybe they need some retooling. I just don't believe it.
You talk about negotiating with an employer about insurance, 401k and other perks. I don't know what field you're in, but try that in the vast majority of jobs. You'd be shown the door and one of the next 500 applicants would get the position.
Like Sam Johnson, you pretend that health care reform is some kind of new idea that we need to think about some more. That's a stalling tactic to kill reform for yet another session of Congress. If opponents would spend less time trying to kill reform and more time proposing solutions, we'd have solved the health care problems by now.
Billing that victim of a bus accident without insurance is one thing. Getting him to pay his astronomical hospital bill is another. The rest of us end up paying for his care through higher premiums for our own insurance. Imposing a mandate on everyone who can pay but won't is a fair way to prevent such abuses.
Andy, you ask, "What qualifies you to control my life?" When that young and healthy person who thinks medical insurance is a waste of money forces my premiums to go up to cover his care when he gets hit by a bus, he's the one controlling how I spend my hard-earned earnings, not the other way around. It's well past time we change that. He (or you) can squeal like a stuck pig. Like I said, we disagree. So be it.
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