Solving Health Care- Part 1
Solving Health Care- Part 1
On Tuesday night, United for National Healthcare is having a meeting to solicit ideas for the Obama administration. I am not sure if I will be able to attend, so I thought I would give my ideas in a
On Tuesday night, United for National Healthcare is having a meeting to solicit ideas for the Obama administration. I am not sure if I will be able to attend, so I thought I would give my ideas in a two part post. Part one will cover why the existing system and proposed plans will not work. Part two will cover a solution that may very well work. To date, neither the Republican nor Democrat strategy are viable.
The Republican solutions fail to seriously recognize that health care is a real issue and continuing to suggest that any health care solution must be a free market based solution is naïve. I am a huge supporter of the free-market in most instances (which is why I wrote criticizing the auto and bank bailouts), but health care is not currently based on free market solutions. The fact is that as a society we do have a huge amount of wealth and we have matured to the point where we do have a high degree of compassion for people. We cannot legitimately suggest that a persons health and well-being should be based on free-markets and whether they can afford health care or not. As a society we are not willing to stand by and let one person die of a heart attack because they do not have health insurance, while saving the life of the next person because they do. Health care is not a right outlined in the Constitution, but given the wealth of the country, everyone does have the same right to quality of medical services, irrespective of social standing or financial means. As a nation, we should have a high enough degree of compassion that access to health care should not be something that anyone has to lay awake at night worrying about.
Personally, I am extremely grateful for the state health care plan which has provided us almost free insurance for most of the past 4 years. During that time my salary was high enough to pay rent, buy food and meet other basic necessities, but there was no way we could pay for health insurance and none of my jobs provided health insurance as a benefit. Our option was no insurance at all or government sponsored, government paid health insurance. When UNHC talks about the importance of providing national health care, it is all about people like myself that do not get health insurance from employers and do not make enough money to buy it on their own. These are people that have jobs, work hard, but do not have a choice about health insurance. Any changes to the health care system must provide health care for everyone without the worry of whether they have coverage or not. Everyone should feel like they can see a doctor if they are sick without fear of long-term financial damage; anything short of this does not have the level of compassion that is required in today’s society.
The Democrat solution of having a national health care system may meet the first requirement, but in many fronts fails on the compassion test as well. Large bureaucracies are not known for compassion and follow rigid rules and guidelines in dealing with issues. For anyone that has spent time and energy trying to get a problem solved by a government agency or large corporation, compassion is never part of the conversation. I am gravely concerned about having something as personal and important as my health being left to a bureaucrat or politician in Olympia or Washington DC. I am not sure there is any difference between trying to deal with an employee of an insurance company in Minnesota or a government employee in Washington DC. The democrats solution rightful condemns the indifference and bureaucracy of health insurance companies, but then makes the false assumption that the Federal government will be different. The only way to solve this is through some sort of local solution. As long as our health is dependent on a call to another part of the country, or the decision of some large bureaucracy (whether insurance company or government department) we will never have the health care system that we deserve.
In summary, any health care solution must have two components. First, it must cover everyone; second, it must be a solution that is controlled locally so if problems arise you can talk with someone face-to-face that lives in your community. Decisions over treatment should be pushed back down to the doctor and individual, not up to some bureaucrat working for an insurance company or the government.
The Republican solutions fail to seriously recognize that health care is a real issue and continuing to suggest that any health care solution must be a free market based solution is naïve. I am a huge supporter of the free-market in most instances (which is why I wrote criticizing the auto and bank bailouts), but health care is not currently based on free market solutions. The fact is that as a society we do have a huge amount of wealth and we have matured to the point where we do have a high degree of compassion for people. We cannot legitimately suggest that a persons health and well-being should be based on free-markets and whether they can afford health care or not. As a society we are not willing to stand by and let one person die of a heart attack because they do not have health insurance, while saving the life of the next person because they do. Health care is not a right outlined in the Constitution, but given the wealth of the country, everyone does have the same right to quality of medical services, irrespective of social standing or financial means. As a nation, we should have a high enough degree of compassion that access to health care should not be something that anyone has to lay awake at night worrying about.
Personally, I am extremely grateful for the state health care plan which has provided us almost free insurance for most of the past 4 years. During that time my salary was high enough to pay rent, buy food and meet other basic necessities, but there was no way we could pay for health insurance and none of my jobs provided health insurance as a benefit. Our option was no insurance at all or government sponsored, government paid health insurance. When UNHC talks about the importance of providing national health care, it is all about people like myself that do not get health insurance from employers and do not make enough money to buy it on their own. These are people that have jobs, work hard, but do not have a choice about health insurance. Any changes to the health care system must provide health care for everyone without the worry of whether they have coverage or not. Everyone should feel like they can see a doctor if they are sick without fear of long-term financial damage; anything short of this does not have the level of compassion that is required in today’s society.
The Democrat solution of having a national health care system may meet the first requirement, but in many fronts fails on the compassion test as well. Large bureaucracies are not known for compassion and follow rigid rules and guidelines in dealing with issues. For anyone that has spent time and energy trying to get a problem solved by a government agency or large corporation, compassion is never part of the conversation. I am gravely concerned about having something as personal and important as my health being left to a bureaucrat or politician in Olympia or Washington DC. I am not sure there is any difference between trying to deal with an employee of an insurance company in Minnesota or a government employee in Washington DC. The democrats solution rightful condemns the indifference and bureaucracy of health insurance companies, but then makes the false assumption that the Federal government will be different. The only way to solve this is through some sort of local solution. As long as our health is dependent on a call to another part of the country, or the decision of some large bureaucracy (whether insurance company or government department) we will never have the health care system that we deserve.
In summary, any health care solution must have two components. First, it must cover everyone; second, it must be a solution that is controlled locally so if problems arise you can talk with someone face-to-face that lives in your community. Decisions over treatment should be pushed back down to the doctor and individual, not up to some bureaucrat working for an insurance company or the government.
