I know I said I would be presenting an analysis of the Health Care Bill – however, given the fact that many provisions have changed – and the fact they won’t actually be taking it up until after the recession – I will wait until they put out the new version and then put up my analysis. In the meantime – let’s talk about health care reform and what the government is trying to do. This whole thing is a scam! What the government is trying to do is to trick people and to demonize the private health insurance industry for the purpose of grabbing up more power, growing government, and taking control of our lives.
Here’s the real deal – this bill is NOT about health care reform. Think about it – what is the major concern about health care? Increasing costs. Not only increasing costs for your basic clinic visits, but also for pharmaceuticals and hospital visits. What is driving up health insurance premiums? The aforementioned costs at the provider level. So – here’s the million dollar question – if the main problem regarding access to healthcare is cost – why is the government trying to force a public option health insurance on America? How does that drive down those costs? It doesn’t. This is mostly about driving private insurance out of business in favor of a government controlled single payer system – yup – check out YID with LID
Sure, they might try to say they can drive down the costs because the government will control the payment rates – but – the reality of it is – the government already DOES control the payment rates. If the government tries to force down those reimbursement rates even further – we’ll start losing physicians. It will drive physicians and hospitals out of business because the government reimbursement rates won’t cover the actual costs.
Take a quick break – this is a long one – check out the cartoons over at A Disgruntled Republican – pretty funny stuff.
This bill is not about health care reform at all as it does nothing to curb costs. This is about health insurance. Health insurance is NOT a right. It IS A RESPONSIBILITY!!! Nowhere in our constitution does it say that every individual in this country has the right to health care. But, that is what this administration is trying to do – they are trying to say people have a fundamental right to health insurance! Guess what people, insurance is a CONSUMER PRODUCT! Since when does anybody have a RIGHT to a CONSUMER PRODUCT? Here’s the definition of insurance:
1 a: the business of insuring persons or property b: coverage by contract whereby one party undertakes to indemnify or guarantee another against loss by a specified contingency or peril c: the sum for which something is insured
2: a means of guaranteeing protection or safety
Insurance is risk mitigation. We buy insurance to offset risk. Auto insurance mitigates our financial risk in case of an accident or other damage to our cars. We pay premiums in exchange for “insurance” that if we have that event – the insurance company will pay for it. Same for homeowners, life, and medical insurance. We pay premiums to offset the risk of some catastrophic event. In order to qualify for any insurance policy of any kind there are statistical calculations taken in to consideration. This is called underwriting. The amount of premium we pay is based on our individual risk factors.
When you look at health insurance – same thing. Our premiums are based on several factors – risk of catastrophic illness, plan provisions, co-payment amounts, and co-insurance amounts. The insurance companies are taking the risk that we won’t have a catastrophic event at age 20. As we get older, our premiums increase because the likelihood of us having a catastrophic event becomes greater. The Obamacare plan proposes a one plan for all at the same price for all. The only way to do that is to have a REALLY high premium – or – they will just increase our taxes to pay for their losses since they do absolutely no statistical analysis.
As with homeowners, auto, and life insurance – health insurance is a responsibility. The government has no power, authority, or right to take our money to pay for somebody else’s health insurance that is their responsibility in the first place. It has NEVER been the government’s responsibility to take care of the individual or our society for that matter. Obamacare is an attempt to take personal responsibility and choice away from us – at our own expense.
The idea that this is healthcare reform is a scam. Real healthcare reform would address the rising costs. If we want healthcare reform – what we need to do is make ACCESS to healthcare more affordable – not giving insurance to everyone. The fact of the matter is that there are 307 Million people in this country. Even if we use the fake number of 45 million uninsured in this country – that is just 15% of our entire population! Obama wants to take the money from the responsible 85% of the population to cover the other irresponsible 15%. As myself and many others have done – when you break down the numbers – what we really have is anywhere between 8 – 10 million that don’t have insurance because they can’t afford it. That is just 3 – 7% of our entire population. So – let’s really think about this – at least 85% of this country has health insurance. As much as 93 – 97% could be insured if they would apply for the benefits they are eligible for or can afford due to their high incomes. The most recent poll of those who do have insurance states 89% of them are happy with their insurance. Not only that – BUT – of that 45 million uninsured – well – 70% of them state they actually do receive health care. Hmmm. So – why do we need another bloated government sponsored health insurance plan that an overwhelming amount of Americans don’t want? What is the reasoning behind the government’s big push when it isn’t needed? Simple – POWER GRAB and CONTROL!
Now – before you jump on me about my comment about the “irresponsible” up there – I will exempt that 8 – 10 million. These are the people that are caught in the middle. They make too much to qualify for existing Medicaid/Medicare/SCHIP – but they don’t make enough to be able to afford the premiums on a healthcare plan of their own and they don’t have coverage through their employers. However, with real healthcare reform – if we make ACCESS more affordable – they could afford either the insurance – or they could afford to pay out of pocket.
The remaining 35 – 37% that are “uninsured” either qualify for one of the other entitlement programs and just haven’t applied, or they’re not American citizens, or – they make $75k or higher and can afford their own insurance. These are the irresponsible people. Health insurance is NOT a right – it IS A RESPONSIBILITY and I shouldn’t have to pay for them.
I know this is a long post – but – this is a big issue. Here’s the solution to making access more affordable that will not only drive down costs – but drive down the cost of insurance:
1 – Tort reform. Put a cap on lawsuits. Physicians and hospitals are required to carry multi-million liability insurance policies just to cover these lawsuits. The cost of these policies are part of the total overhead in healthcare costs. Sure, there are real cases of medical malpractice that warrant the need for high judgements in order to cover not only lost lifetime wages – but – to cover healthcare expenses as well. In addition to capping lawsuit awards – they also need to start fining lawyers for bringing on frivolous lawsuits that have no merit. Any lawyer in this country can bring a lawsuit against any physician for any reason. They do this because they hope the physician’s insurance company will just pay them off rather than go through a lengthy and costly trial. The number of frivolous lawsuits is increasing in America and there needs to be stop to this practice. This is one of the major reasons for increased costs in healthcare.
2 – More investment in technology. Another large cost to hospitals and providers is the cost of technology. We have the most advanced medical technology in the world – and – we as patients pay for that through our premiums. In order to bring these costs down we need more investment to bring it down. Remember in the 1970′s when the basic hand-held calculators cost $100 or more? Now they are given out for free as marketing tools and they are included on every freakin’ cell-phone in the country. Time, investment, and demand drove those prices down. Free-market and capitalism is the answer to driving down the cost of medical technology in conjunction with continued investment to get the technology in mainstream medicine.
3 – Managed Care. We need to get rid of those fee-for-service plans. These type of plans continue to drive up the cost of healthcare because most individuals on these plans also don’t take responsibility for their own health. With managed care plans – individuals are forced to be included in the health care decisions and for taking responsibility of their own health through health education programs. You won’t find Diabetes, COPD, Asthma, or Hypertension education programs managed by RN Case Managers in a fee-for-service environment. The benefits of a managed care plan is that you constantly have contact with nurses and physicians to help you manage your care. You are required to see your physician at least 2 times a year. If you are on one of those education plans – it may be as much as 4 times a year. So – how does this work? Managed care plans operate on what is called a Per-Member-Per-Month fee schedule. They get paid a certain amount each month to take care of you. This drives down the premium cost. The physician is forced to use that money to take care of you. If you go to a hospital – it comes out of that PMPM. If you go to a laboratory – it comes out of that PMPM, etc. Physicians are incentivized to keep you healthy. If you are healthy – you won’t be inclined to go to a hospital. NO – physicians under managed care plans won’t keep you from going to the hospital. If you need to see a specialist – you will see that specialist. Some of the most successful group practices in America with the largest amount of patients are managed care plans. It is basic healthcare 101 – you keep a patient healthy – the costs are low.
4 – Electronic Medical Records & E-Prescribe – We need to move everything to electronic medical records. Right now a major cost to any physician practice or hospital are the administrative costs of maintaining and storing paper medical records. The HITECH Act will be forcing everyone to move to EMR and e-prescribe by 2014. However, the big downfall to this bill is that it creates a national health information databank that is maintained by the federal government. The government will now be big brother and have access to every bit of personal health information of every single individual who sees a physician. These EMR systems are mandated to be directly linked to the federal databank. There currently is no opt-out. While moving to EMR will help to reduce these costs, if the HITECH Act stays in place – these savings will end up being offset by the costs required to maintain connection to the federal databank. E-prescribe has been proven to reduce prescription errors as they are clearly transmitted to the pharmacy. The pharmacy will have a legible record knowing exactly what drug is being prescribed and what the dosage is.
5 – Increased investment in pharmaceutical research – Right now – we pay for R&D in new drug development at the cash register when we purchase our drugs. Today’s drugs are financing tomorrow’s new drugs. If the government really wants to reduce the cost of drugs – spend the proposed money for this healthcare bill on R&D to the pharmaceutical companies. Hey – if they can give college professors money to study the affect of alcohol on strippers in Venezuela – they can give some of that money to our pharmacy industry. We have a lot of ridiculous grants going to universities to study some really stupid shit. Let’s put our taxpayer money where it could do some real good.
6 – No MANDATED coverage in health insurance policies – as it stands now, each state has certain mandates to health insurance plans. In my case, I have to pay for mandated mammogram and pap-smear screening. How the hell does it make any sense that I HAVE to have a plan for something that I as a male would NEVER need? We don’t have a choice because our state governments have forced insurance companies to do this. This too drives up our premiums. If there are mandates – they should be gender specific mandates by purchaser.
Anyway – that is my basic outline for making healthcare more affordable. If we take these basic actions, we don’t need another massive government backed health insurance plan. Instead, we would have affordable access to healthcare and we may not even need basic health insurance. Rather, we could purchase catastrophic only health insurance plans that would cover us in the case of extended hospital stays due to serious injury or illness.
