There is much to discuss, debate and argue with Sunday’s passing of a Health Care Reform Bill. How does one eat an elephant? One bite at a time. My first bite follows:
Two elements of the Health Care reform package must go hand in hand, requirement of citizens to carry coverage and requirement of providers to offer ‘affordable’ coverage regardless of pre-existing condition.
With the signing of the current Health Care Reform Bill, the US Government will require private insurance providers to accept as clients patients with existing conditions. The US Government will also now impose a ‘fine’/'tax’ (actually an important distinction) on people who do not purchase some minimum of insurance.
If the Government does not make such a requirement of citizens, they render the insurance business impotent with coverage requirements as users of these services will hold incentive to simply await expensive conditions of injury or illness before buying insurance only to drop said insurance once well.
You can’t have one without the other so I believe current strategy to regard the recent Bill as unConstitutional based on the notion that the government has never required a citizen to buy a privately supplied good or service misses a mark and serves a pervasive slippery slope. One argument commonly used to support this claim is that the government already requires one to buy a minimum of automobile liability insurance. This argument is quickly marginalized by the counter that one is not mandated to drive at all let alone on public roads.
So the distinction between auto insurance and health insurance becomes that one is being required to spend money for simply living. To make that last statement accurate one must add to it the words ‘in the USA’. We’ve already a precedent from which to draw acceptance of such a statement. We must pay taxes simply for living in the USA. No American is immune nor are any visitors.
UnConstitutional? I guess to the extent paying taxes fits the bill. But you can’t really argue against a tax for not carrying insurance without arguing against requirements of insurance companies to cover existing conditions. It would be like requiring Auto insurers to allow the purchase of comprehensive coverage of a vehicle that’s already been totaled. It would be like requiring providers to accept a new fire-insurance policy on a home already burned to the ground.
One might argue they should retain the right to choose out of the insurance scheme altogether. I agree so long as one can prove enough resource to handle a certain medical burden financially and is willing to forfeit his/her rights under Acts such as “The federal Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act” or EMTALA which take away a Dr.’s right to refuse care based on inability to pay for it. Ahhh, but now I’m nibbling on yet another piece of pachyderm.
More to follow.
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3 comments:
Hi Bluto
I have stopped blogging on the HJ news site, as I don't find the new format enjoyable any more. However I still enjoy your opinion on things so I still follow your blog site.
I think you have a good handle on the issues with this post. The two things that follow from this is 1: there needs to be some sort of subsidy to cover people who cannot afford health insurance. The other (2) is that the only other alternative to covering everybody is to have the government do it directly. This solution keeps a significant share of the business in private hands, so the government simply oversees the process rather than handling it directly. This is very similar to Switzerland's health care system (and Massachussets'); the Swiss system has worked well for decades.
1.
Unless we as a nation get a handle on obesity, it's not going to matter whether we have private or socialized medicine.
Obesity is an epidemic. One-third of our children are obese.
The cost of obesity to this nation will be staggering regardless of how health care is administered. Ultimately, the cost of obesity will be passed on to those who pay or the taxpayer.
The medical community and most people know what it takes to solve the obesity epidemic. Diet and exercise. Unfortunately, we've become a Big Mac society and the most consider the TV remote, computer keyboard and keys on their cell phone as their daily exercise regiment. School lunches are a joke. PE is no longer mandatory in most schools. What kind of an education is this?
2.
Drugs and Alcohol. The addiction to these substances is the other big elephant that must be controlled or it, in addition to obesity, add staggering costs to our overall health care costs.
Our hospital ER's are filled with the obese, drug addicts, chronic alcoholics and those without insurance. Our VA hospitals are filled to the brim with druggies and alcoholics. Druggies and alcoholics are still devastating lives on our highways.
It won't matter whether our nation's health care is private or public. If we don't get obesity and drug and alcohol addiction under control, ultimately health care costs will bankrupt our nation.
I totally agree Anonymous,
Thanks
I don't believe 'life' to be a right at all. I believe:
'Life is a privilege you lose by attempting suicide no matter how slow the pace.'
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