Can someone explain to me how it is that a corporation that has shareholders and must pay employees an above govt grade salary to retain talent and compete with each other are supposed to compete with a health insurance provider that is managed and backed by the federal government? How do you, as a for-profit company, compete with someone on price when they have no profit motive? And let's face it. People will choose their insurance based on price because for the most part, people are short-sighted.
I realize that the health plan that is being proposed is SUPPOSED to be sustained by the premiums that are being forced into it by the mandated insurance coverage that will be forced upon us, but that is the same argument that was made for the creation of Fannie May and Freddie Mac. We all say how that turned out when it looked like the might become insolvent. First of the bailouts. Yay.
Why is it again that businesses are being forced to provide health care to their employees? What was wrong with the tax credit idea? Go out and get your own insurance. Lose your job? Get another one? Want to change your plan? Do whatever you want. You don't have to go through an HR department during specific times of the year and only make changes once a year. It's your plan. You can do it whenever you want to.
Why punish businesses when their employees don't want coverage? If you should punish anyone it should be the employee. How do you determine who gets punished if you insist on punishing businesses? My understanding is that they want full AND part-time employees covered by businesses. What about the people who have multiple part-time jobs? Do each of those businesses get punished if the person instead chooses to opt out of an insurance plan? Wouldn't that be double-dipping?
Why can't people be charged more by a Health INSURANCE company (notice the emphasis on insurance - see my previous post) for a history of risky behavior like, I don't know, say... being fat? If I go out for Auto Insurance and I have a crappy driving history, or I go out to get a loan and I have a horrific credit history, I would pay more for the service being requested because I have demonstrated that I have trouble "behaving." Why should this be different for Medical INSURANCE? If you are talking health CARE, then it is a different issue. You are going to use the service and are not gambling like an insurance situation. Likely means you care about your health and are willing to live a healthier lifestyle than someone who just wants insurance.
At this point in my life, I would rather have health CARE than health INSURANCE. That is my choice. I am interested in not dying for another couple of dozen years. I plan to live long enough to torture my children, by being the best grandpa that ever there was. Just like my parents. Unfortunately my dad passed away with a lot of torture left undone. My mom is working diligently to take up his workload. Had my dad been more into preventative care, or not just manning up and dealing with the pain, he might still be here today. I don't know that either insurance OR care would have helped in his situation. He believed that his pain was just a sign of his getting older. No routine testing would have seen it.
In the end whether we as Americans are healthy or not is in a lot of ways up to us. It is our choices to over-eat, over-drink, smoke, over-medicate and ignore warning signs that make us healthy or sick. I would love it if in this debate a little less vilifying the health insurers, malpractice insurers, malpractice lawyers, pharmaceutical companies, doctors, hospital administration and government officials and a little more talk about the personal responsibility that we should all be taking for the situation.
I think that the reason we have skyrocketing health care costs is because we as a society are under the impression that we should be able to take a pill that fixes what is wrong or have a surgery or some other quick fix instead of living our lives in a way that prevents us from getting sick in the first place. I am pretty sure that at no point in my dad's VERY BRIEF (less than a week) battle with cancer did he at any point, for one second blame the insurance company, the hospital or his doctor. I think that he realized that if he had just seen someone about the excruciating pain he was in sooner, he could have had a fighting chance. But by the time he did, it was too late.
How about we stop blaiming everyone but ourselves (which is par for the course) and start to take some responsibility for our own health problems. I was recently diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. Doctor told me if I didn't get my shit straightened out, I would probably end up stabbing myself with needles multiple times a day. Now that is motivation. He gave me some drugs and I worked on modifying my diet. To my surprise, and my doctor's surprise, I became really active in fixing the situation. I took responsibilty for being the raging fat-ass that I am and with my blood sugar so high I immediately took the Atkins approach and drastically cut carbs. Found out from some reading materials that you actually DO need carbs. Apparently if you blood sugar frops too loe you pass out and never wake up again. That idea sucked, so I started eating some. I asked him to refer me to a dietitian and, voila, she said I needed to eat more. She helped me to make better choices. I can still have some of the crap I would normally eat, but I try to avoid most anything deep fried. It hurts, but the other choice is popping handfuls of pills. I am not a pill person. I don't like the idea that I need a pill to live, and that the only reason I do is because I can't control myself. It's not my thing. Longer than I planned on story short, I have dropped my Blood Glucose Levels from 350 down to a reasonable 100. I have dropped nearly 35 ponds. That's just with the diet change. I haven't really added exercise to the equation yet. that is proving a tougher nut to crack.
This is what America needs to do. Probably 70% (I made this number up, it is not based on any fact or evidence) of the "diseases" out there are a result of being a raging fat-ass. Drop some pounds as a nation and watch your spending on health care drop as well.
I think that everyone should take responsibility for their own health. I guess that it boils down to the fact that I believe that everyone should be free to make their own decisions. About health care, health insurance, being healthy, how to be healthy. But if you have the freedom to make the choice, then you have to also take responsibility when the choices you make, put your health in jeopardy. I guess the thing I don't like the most about the concept of universal health care, or a public option, or whatever you want to call it, is that I don't like that a government run option will eventually take away my CHOICE. First they mandate you have to have coverage, then they impose the "sin taxes" like they have on smoking. They first apply it to sugar drinks because they cause diabetes. Then they apply it to fatty foods because they cause heart disease. And it goes on from there. Eventually you will be told that you will eat X for breakfast, Y for lunch, and if you deviate from these prescriptions you will be a penalty. And it will all be done in the name of saving on health care costs.
Wow. That was kind of all over the damn place.
My name is Pat Aurience and I am a fat-bastard. But, I am working on it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
Fantastic post! But I'd like to toss my two cents in and say that everyone should have access to affordable health care. That is all.
ReplyDeleteWell, it was Patrick, and I say that strictly from an 'it takes one to know one' perspective. It may be in the genes. But you also raise some great questions. That's pretty rare and special this season, and I for one appreciate it.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, having spent a lifetime (well, it seemed like one) in the insurance industry, I can help with a couple of your questions.
Theoretically, your point on paying for routine maintenance and small claims out of pocket like we do for auto and homeowners makes a lot of sense. And I think many of us would be happy to have the same kind of high deductible plans for health insurance, except that unfortunately it doesn't work quite the same way in the health insurance biz. For example: If you have to spend $1,000 to repair hail damage on your car or your roof, then either you or the insurance company pays the $1,000. Easy. If you have a $1,000 medical procedure on the other hand, you as an individual pay the full bill (say $1,000 to keep it simple, although in reality it probably would have been grossed up by a good margin), but your insurance company pays somewhere between $300 and $700 typically. Take a look at a few of your EOBs and you'll see what I mean. And that of course is if they pay at all, which is another whole kettle of fish. Like for example the time they refused to pay for my annual pap smear because they decided I had become a male and was trying to weasel a pap smear out of them. Yeah, right. Then there's the time they decided to boot my doc out of the network without telling me when I was in the midst of a breast cancer episode. Don't worry, I did get the benefits I was entitled to, but only because I am willing and able to go through all the trouble it takes to fight the bureaucracy. You can see why, as much as I appreciate and share the concerns of folks who worry about government messing with our health care, I know for a fact that I'm sick and tired of the insurance company messing with it, and have not the slightest confidence that the industry can be trusted to do anything to improve the system without some serious competitive pressure.
Another topic you raised that I don't think gets nearly enough attention is the role of employers in the health insurance delivery system. That was a WWII relic and it's long past time they were freed from the middle of a thorny issue that shouldn't be their problem. They have enough to think about trying to stay competitive in today's economy without health insurance administration and premiums dragging them down. It's time to give employers a break and get them out of the health care business, not force the rest of them into it.
I know we love our warm and fuzzy American ideal that if only private industry were left alone to do business in its own way, all would be well. That's obviously mythological as demonstrated by the financial and auto industries over the past year and the state of health insurance today after these many years of exemption from federal oversight in favor of fragmented state regulation. On the other hand, I find it hard to believe that a 1400 page bill filled with health care and insurance regulation is the answer either, especially when it's being crafted by a Congress that for the most part hasn't exactly demonstrated its competence or its 'Country First' attitude lately.
There are no easy answers here, and that's why I'm so peeved that the discussion has turned into a shouting match rather than a thoughtful exchange of views and new ideas.
Thanks for trying, Patrick!
I would agree with you at length about taking responsibility for our own health care, but I've probably gone on too long already. Good luck beating the diabetes!
Auntie P
PS Here are a couple of links to interesting health care discussions I've seen this week:
http://tinyurl.com/lsfguf
http://tinyurl.com/pszz9r