yelpingninny's Blog

A Dialogue about Healthcare Reform, Part I
- Posted on 07.30.09
So many scary things are being said right now about the state of the American healthcare system.

Extremists on one side would have us believe if we alter the healthcare program we have government pencil pushers will facelessly handle our health needs like damaged boxes at the post office. We will bear the burden of paying for the pricey bypass surgeries and liver transplants of obese diabetics and alcoholics who didn't bother to pay for their own insurance or take better care of themselves and welfare mothers with no regard for how to pay for their own families' needs because the government is always there to bail them out. Honest, hardworking, taxpaying citizens will be bumped to the back of the long line of entitled slackers expecting handouts and illegal immigrants fresh off their liquor store robberies and reckless expectant mothers looking for a free ticket to their 5th abortion.

On the other side extremists oversimplify the issue by making Big Insurance into the great satan and a hazy portrait of government organized healthcare as the one-size-fits-all answer. The costs of insuring everyone in what can only be assumed to be an inefficient system filled with the typical government red tape and bureaucracy are excused away by taxing the rich more and the offsets of preventative care.

So who are the bad guys? The government? The insurance companies? Al Qaeda?

No argument for or against heath care reform is complete without an allegory fro some friend of a friend that reinforces the views of the arguer.

--"My cousin who lives in Canada had to wait three years to get back surgery for a debilitating injury."

-- "I was a tourist in France and I broke my toe. I had to go to the emergency room to get a cast. Two hours later I walked out with my toe reset and I only paid $18."

-- "Sweden pays 70% in taxes to the government so that the homeless are covered on insurance."

And it seems whatever the allegory the depiction is either plainly devastating or mecca-like with no middle ground to be found. To most, the issue seems so black and white that I fear we have lost sight of trying to solve any legitimate problems Americans have with the current healthcare system as well as legitimate concerns about changing policy, in favor of just wanting to be right. I know that my experiences with health care and health insurance have been less than fantastic and I am a reasonably healthy, upper-middle-class white girl. Despite my bad experiences I have concern that change could just be jumping from the pot to the frying pan - a very valid shade of grey.

So which is it? Are we as a nation experiencing battered housewife syndrome, content to stay in an abusive relationship with Big Insurance or do we have the normal problems any complex relationship is going to have and not know a good thing when we have it?

Since so many of the arguments are based in heated emotion and second hand stories, I thought I would dialogue about this complex issue without using these tactics but instead weigh the pros and cons to both sides in a rational and logical manner in hopes of, at the very least, sorting out my own thoughts. I invite anyone who reads this to respond to anything they feel the need to add, but I do ask that the spirit of the discussion remains elevated, logical and toward the goal of solving the problems at hand, not merely trying to prove their point and be "right".

First and foremost few baseline factors have to be established. I will be weighing the Obama/Biden Healthcare Plan as it is written on his website versus the healthcare system currently in place. There is no official "Opposition Plan" that has been offered otherwise that would be put into the mix as well. ("The Parent's Choice Act of 2009" is a Healthcare reform plan that was announced on Wednesday, July 29th by by U.S. Senators Tom Coburn, (R-OK) and Richard Burr (R-NC) among others. As of today, July 30th, the plan has yet to be released and has not been endorsed by the Republican Party or the opposition to the President's proposed healthcare plan.) A full copy of Obama's Healthcare plan an be read and downloaded here: http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/issues/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf. When a full copy of the Parent's Choice Act or another official opposition plan comes up the link to that plan will be provided in the comments below.

Obama's healthcare plan is written in plan language, is organized in a intuitive way, and is written on what I'm guessing is a 5th grade reading level, so I am not going to rehash every point line for line. I would ask that everyone who purports to have an opinion about where our healthcare should go from here to read this 7 page, large-type doccument. It took me about 15 minutes to read and I am a very slow reader. After reading it I was left feeling angry that this document can be written so plainly and yet there can still be so much misinformation passed around as fact. I challenge anyone who opposes healthcare reform to read this document and then come back to the table for discussion as most of the opposition talking points are plainly dispelled. I challenge those for healthcare reform to read this document and commit it to memory so that you can refute the b.s. in an articulate way when it comes up in conversation. Despite one's opinions, healthcare reform or not, people deserve to have to correct facts when making their decision.

Assuming everyone has now read the Obama plan I will try to go through all of the main concerns against healthcare reform and discuss the validity of each tempered against this document. Then in Part II of this discussion I will be listing some of the main complaints Americans have with healthcare as it stands now and the validity of each.

With each of these discussion topics I am not claiming to provide comprehensive lists for either side. This is merely one American's perspective on what she has heard and researched for this article. I invite you to add anything that I may have missed in the comments, keeping in mind the furtherance of solutions to this volatile issue.

Obama's plan in a two minute summary:

The Obama healthcare plan provides a second option to for-profit healthcare providers in the form of a non-profit insurance policy. Think about it, how much of your premiums go to paying for your Insurance CEO's trip to the spa in Aspen or for their Super Bowl commercial? What if there was an insurance company where 100% of the money you and every other member paid into your plan went to the actual cost of medical care? I think that is simple concept that everyone can get behind.

Additionally, the plan lays out basic ethics standards to for-profit insurance companies and drug companies such as the requirement of coverage for pre-exisiting conditions, the prevention of drug companies from blocking generic brand alternatives. The proposed payment for the non-profit insurance would come from the reduced costs of catastrophic illness, investing in electronic health information technology systems that reduce medical malpractice and efficiency costs and the reformation of frivolous medical malpractice suits.

Concerns against healthcare reform:

1. "I don't want to pay more money."

The brilliant thing about the Obama plan is that it is only one option. As an adult you are free to maintain the insurance you already have, switch to the non-profit public option, or just not have any insurance at all. No government agent is going to compel you to buy their plan or any other.

2. "Yeah, but kids will be mandated to have insurance, right?"

This is true. The Obama plan compels parents/guarians to insure their children either under the public option or private insurance. Get over it. Kids need to be insured and have quality healthcare, teeth cleanings, glasses for school etc. Deadbeat parents who can't wrap their heads around this should be compelled to do so. Anyone who cannot afford traditional for-profit healthcare for their children will be provided sensible options through the public plan at a rate they can afford. Preventative care for the little ones will save us exponentially in the long run. For example, the average cost of a child's teeth cleaning is $50 while the cost of one cavity filling is $250.

2. "I don't belong to a socialist country. I don't want to be forced to pay for other people's healthcare."

"Socialist" has become the dirty slang word du-jour in politics lately. It is so loaded I almost fear calling it into question in the spirit of just trying to communicate issues and not be combative. That said, there are a few things about this that I cannot pass up commenting on. First off, the premise of paying for other people's healthcare as being a gateway to becoming a socialist society is more than a bit misleading. It really comes down to societal norms. We are comfortable paying certain collective expenses while the collective expense of healthcare still feels, well... downright foreign.

What would our country be like if every time there was a fire, fireman would sit and watch someone's house burn until they where able to pay the cost of putting it out (likely thousands to tens of thousands of dollars)? What would we think of a society where the only children who could get an education where the ones who could pay a private school price tag? What do we as a society gain by having our neighbor's fires put out and compulsory free education for every member of society? Putting out fires and educating every American citizen is extremely costly, but in purely financial terms, how much money do we save by collectively chipping in and paying for these "socialist" services in the long run? Last year 10% o American children went to private schools. For the sake of argument lets be generous and assume another 30% could pay for some sort of private school if that were the only option. Can you imagine what our country would be like if 10-40% of the population could read? Do basic math? Knew who our founding father's were?

In essence, as a country we have no public healthcare option. The only healthcare one can receive is the equivalent of a pricey private-school education or a for-profit fire department with Super Bowl ads and big CEO payouts.

3. "I don't want to be forced to pay for healthcare that I morally disagree with."

There is nothing within the public option for health insurance that allows for abortions to be covered. This is still an elective procedure and as with most private insurance companies, is not covered. Bottom line, this is a made up fact to scare people into voting against healthcare reform.

4. "I am concerned that I will have less control over my healthcare and that it will be determined not on the basis of need, but by government policy and red tape."

I find this argument fascinating as this is pretty much a description of how for-profit health insurance works right now. Health Insurance providers dictate what is and is not a frivolous procedure, therefore what they will or will not pay for, NOT your doctor. Let me repeat, this is ALREADY happening. If you have insurance and you have a doctor, the insurance company has 100% control over your healthcare.

To be continued in Part II...