Misinformed on Health Care
At a recent town hall meeting, a man stood up and told Representative Bob Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.” The congressman, a Republican from South Carolina, tried to explain that Medicare is already a government program — but the voter, Mr. Inglis said, “wasn’t having any of it.”
That nugget comes to us from Paul Krugman at the New York Times. Such is our public debate on health care reform. People love an existing government run health care program. People are adamant that government keep its hands out of their health care.
Well, some people feel that way.
This combination of attitudes – a love of Medicare (people on it are more satisfied than people with private insurance) and a distrust or hatred of goverment programs – has complicated the health care reform debate.
Some people would prefer employers to give cash and let employees buy insurance on the open market. That, it seems, is very inefficient in paying for health care.
In the individual insurance market, where people buy insurance directly rather than getting it through their employers, so much money goes into underwriting and other expenses that only around 70 cents of each premium dollar actually goes to care.
If you are an insurance company employee that 30 cents on the dollar keeping you employed is a good deal. [easy for the bank employee to write…]
Krugman concludes with:
To the extent we have a working health care system at all right now it’s only because government covers the elderly, while a combination of regulation and tax subsidies makes it possible for many, but not all, nonelderly Americans to get decent private coverage.
Now Mr. Obama basically proposes using additional regulation and subsidies to make decent insurance available to all of us. That’s not radical; it’s as American as, well, Medicare.
Posted on July 31st, 2009 under Health, Politics • 
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August 1st, 2009 at 9:01 am
Well, and good, except for a few things:
1. Obama’s plan would REQUIRE everyone to have health insurance. And my costs would not be based on my reality (earnings vs. expenses), but on some adjusted scale decided upon by someone who lives a life not even remotely resembling mine. I’ve been through the low-income assistance mill too many times to trust that my government WON’T require me to go broke paying for health insurance.
2. Good luck getting the insurance companies to accept me AND my preexisting condition.
3. After my premiums are covered, will I be able to afford to USE the insurance, or will the deductibles be so high that I choose to stay home rather than go broke trying to pay for treatment I can’t afford?
I just don’t trust that this is going in a good direction that is truly equitable for everyone. And because of that, I’d rather the government leave me alone, too. Even if it means I can’t have health insurance and must resort to creative workarounds to get what I need. The workarounds are more affordable and leave me with enough money to keep a roof over my head.