Health Care Reform

Living in North Texas is a challenge for a moderate. Everywhere I go, I am confronted with Republican anger over everything President Obama does. It seems nearly everyone I interact with is a follower of Rush Limbaugh or Fox News. And they are furious.

The current topic du jour is health care reform. The conservative consensus is that socialized medicine is bad and that everyone should pay their own way. What they fail to see is that through our current private pay system, we already have state-supported healthcare. It's just indirect.

If I don't have health insurance, I cannot be refused treatment at a hospital. I may be eligible for a host of other benefits too, like SCHIP and Medicaid, to name a few others.

If I don't pay my hospital bills, who pays? Everyone else, of course -- the payers support the non-payers through higher prices. This is also true for those who pay out of pocket rather than those who have insurance. Doctors charge different rates for those with insurance and those without.

The policy decision made many moons ago, which is sound, is that no one should be denied necessary healthcare. The only question remaining is who should pay for it, and how.

The best analogy here is to auto insurance. We are all required to have it (liability coverage, anyway). Why? So that everyone is responsible for losses they cause. It's not a big stretch to make the same argument for healthcare. If health coverage were mandatory (either via employer payroll deduction or private pay), then all employed persons would immediately be paying and participating in the system fairly. Yes, there would still be "free riders," namely children, seniors, the disabled, and the unemployed. But the workers of America have always supported those who are unable to do so.

As a side benefit, pre-existing condition issues would be a thing of the past. If you always had coverage, you would never be declined for coverage based on a previous medical problem. It would devolve to the former and current insurance companies to hash out who pays.

It's myopic to think that the current system is working. While doctors and Big Pharmaceutical may oppose government price controls, it is no different than the various state insurance regulatory authorities setting limits on car insurance. The state has a legitimate public health interest in establishing parameters for health insurance, including pricing and availability.

The remaining issues (chiefly choice of doctor and denial of services concerns) are no different going forward than they are at the present.

Fortunately, many in the GOP acknowledge that the current system is broken. If their main beef with Obamacare is the public option, I can understand their concern. But to fight the President's plan on the basis that it is socialist, or that universal health care is somehow evil, is just stupid and ignores the reality of our current situation.