My case for healthcare reform

I've been reading a bunch about this topic a lot lately. I've tried to get both sides of the issue, reading some conservatives writings and liberal. But there are just a lot more liberals talking about it and I probably tend to read more liberal biased stuff overall (I try not to, I promise), so I can't say my research was completely even handed, but I can say that I've thought about it a lot and tried to form my own opinions, which I have a convenient outlet for here. I'll try to be concise. And if you have ANYTHING to say, please comment. Health care reform = the more voices of citizens, the better.

Single payer, in my opinion, is the way to go. We've got a chance at getting everyone covered going other ways. Massachusetts did it well. Thanks Mitt. But in order to control costs, which is the big thing everyone is talking about, the government has to step in in a big way. The cost of health care in Massachusetts is going up faster than the rest of the country. The reason boils down to incentives. There is absolutely no incentive for insurance companies to keep costs down. It is how they make money. The higher the costs the better, as long as people continue to pay them. The hospitals also have little incentive to keep the costs down, especially when they are full to the brim with patients, as most hospitals are. The only people they don't like are the uninsured. Medicaid and medicare patients pay just fine. The government forces hospitals to treat the uninsured, but only enough to keep them alive, sometimes. And patients have little incentive to keep health care costs down, while they have it. Especially when a condition is expensive and maxes out the deductible, the average patient is going to spend any amount of the insurers money to get well.

What we definitely need is a disinterested party to make the tough decisions that no one else in the system is willing to make. That means, for example, forcing hospitals to use less expensive and technologically advanced treatments that work as well or nearly as well and not allowing patients to sue the doctors for not going with the expensive treatment. Yes, rationing would be a reality, but it already is. Health care providers already tell us what kind of treatments we can and can't have. But all they take into consideration is cost, not cost vs. quality and length of life, which should be the real considerations in rashioning. I think allowing people to pay for expensive surgeries out of pocket if the system deems it too expensive would also be a fair addition to a single payer system, and it seems to work in places like France. If we can find some group to do this that is not the government, than great, but I don't see anyone stepping forward. To keep it from being political, a health board, like the federal reserve, made up of industry experts independent from, but appointed by, at some level, the government. President Obama is already setting up something like this for Medicare.

We are currently paying 17% of our GDP for a healthcare system that is not providing us a higher quality of life as measured by most health statistics as countries like Germany, France and Switzerland who are paying around 10% of GDP for their single payer systems. The amount we're spending on health care now ($2.4 trillion) will nealry double to $4.3 trillion (which will be around 20% of GDP by then) by 2017 if current trends continue, while all these other countries are projected to hold steady. Reforming our legal system or adding a few government incentives will not be enough to hold down costs.

I understand that these changes can't come all at once. That's the nature of our system of government that I love so much. But a lot of the experts within the healthcare industry that I have heard in interviews and whatenot have expressed their personal opinion that single payer is the way to go, but that there is not political will enough for a change. The only way to change that is by normal citizens speaking to one another and talking about what they want out of healthcare. And I think things are starting to change. I've heard two different republican Senators (Bennett and McConnell) talk about the Safeway system of controlling costs with major incentives and an active regulation of spending talked about as a system to model ours after. What they don't say is that this is a single payer system, just with a corporation as a single payer, and not the government. The current dead-in-the-water health care bill shows that this time around, the American people aren't going to be satisfied with half-measures and platitudes. And that makes me very optimistic.

If you'd like to comment on this post, which I more than welcome, I only want to set out two ground rules. Well three. First, be nice, because this is a hotly charged topic nowadays. Second, calling single payer system "socialist" doesn't count as a legitimate argument. Taxes, public school and anti-trust laws are all socialist. Does anyone really want trusts back? I didn't think so. Third, anecdotal evidence from your friend who lives in Canada doesn't count as an argument either. For everyone that comes down to pay for a surgery here they can't get there, there are ten people going up there to get medications they can't afford here because our system drives the prices up super high. Anecdotal arguments aren't arguments at all. Those are my rules, because it's my blog.

A lot of my information and stats from here and the links they provide, but from other places as well. Let me know if you at all care about that.

And if anyone can talk to how home-births would save the country billions of dollars, extra bonus points.