Societal Changes and Government Intervention

The following post is a response to a comment on an earlier post:

Our society is radically different than it was in the 18th century. Everyone was independent then. There was far less of a need for govt regulation when the Constitution was written. We are now so dependent on others as a society. You can't just walk to where you need to go, you need a vehicle, which needs gas and maintenance, and a system of roads and highways (provided by the govt). Much different from a buggy you made and maintained by yourself, powered by your horse you kept in the pasture. Our society is so complex now. We can't even feed ourselves anymore w/o transportation, grocery store chains, credit/debit cards, and interstate shipping. We aren't able to be as self-reliant as we were in the days of our Founding Fathers. How can we expect to be independent in seeking medical care?

If we want to control the power of the insurance companies, it must be done by governmental control. Congress has already had to legislate minimum length of stay for child birth, when insurance companies were dictating that women and newborns had to be discharged within a few hours of birth. This was dangerous medically (not the doctor's decision), and ethically. Congress passed a law mandating a minimum 24 hr hospital stay after child birth. Congress has also had to intervene to mitigate the ability for people with previous or current health issues to obtain insurance (the gatekeepers of health/medical care), becuase the insurance companies want to deny them access for pre-existing conditions. The people who are most in need of health/medical care are too much of a risk. Gee...they might actually NEED medical care! That's not cost effective.

As long as we continue to allow medical care to be subject to the free market system, the insurance industry will have to be reigned in by governmental regulation and legislation. The Founding Fathers could not have forseen that our medical care would be so advanced, yet filtered through profit-minded insurance companies. The power of the insurance industry rivals that of the government, yet is ruled by those seeking profit, certainly not by the will of the people. In the case of healthcare, governmental intervention is a necessity in order to protect the well-being (or even the existence) of its citizens.

It is simply wrong for anyone to make decisions on caring for their body based on financial considerations. Yet millions have gone bankrupt from unanticipated (sometimes unforseeable) medical expenses. If you are severely injured in an accident, or are faced with an unexpected costly medical condition (such as cancer), you will suddenly find yourself in debt for thousands, or even tens or hundreds of thousands, of dollars. Your access to basic medical care should not be subject to the free market. Medical care is not a commodity.

Healthcare Vouchers

The best solution I've found for reforming the healthcare system is Healthcare Vouchers. Please see the link for details. Here are my favorite parts of this system, as proposed by Dr. Fuchs (professor emeritus of Health Policy at Stanford Univ) and Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel (Bioethics Committee, NIH):

• Covers all U.S. citizens
• Similar to current coverage for Federal employees, including members of Congress
• Individuals choose a health plan to administer their healthcare
• ELIMINATES employer-based insurance, creating a huge economic stimulus
• Administered by a Regional Board of Governors
• Disputes resolved through an arbitration board, instead of lawsuits
• Medicare and Medicaid would eventually be phased out by attrition

LINK: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2007/07useconomics_emanuel.aspx

Filtering Healthcare

Why are we filtering our access to healthcare through the insurance industry?!! The government is propping up the already rich Insurance Industry, and now they want to mandate EVERYONE to pay the insurance companies even more money. I say NO WAY!! We will have the choice to either pay into insurance, or pay penalties to the government. Is that not a monopoly, playing with everyone's money?!!