Hello Readers. The following post is from a very longtime friend of mine who is looking at our health care crisis from a perspective that none of the morons in Washington are taking.
Thank you to my guest contributor DH for his valued input here:
I am very concerned about the fact that we are quickly losing our freedoms and seem to me moving in the wrong direction in many areas of our social and economic life here in the states. One of my concerns is the broken health system and the incorrect direction we seem to be moving in an attempt to repair the problems. If our politicians were really attempting to correct a broken system why don’t they look back a few years when it was working?
I don’t claim to be the smartest person in the world or to know all the answers but I do observe and pay attention to life. I have a simple story about my family that will illustrate my point very well. I am 66 years old so I think I can say I have seen the evolution of the health care system in the United States in the last 60 years or so.
First let me say that as a child growing up I had a great family. We were poor but my parents could afford a doctor office visit and they could pay for a tonsillectomy. We could afford to go to dentists and hospitals, and the usual things that happen from having six children.
I got married in 1966 and we had our first child in August of 1967. Our total out of pocket cost for the hospital and doctor was around $375, and by the way my wife was in the hospital 3 days. We had group insurance at the time through my wife’s work. Some may say that was a lot of money for that time but I was young and only making about $600-$700 per month, so about half a month’s wages was the total cost, well within my ability to pay out of my pocket. At this point and time almost everyone paid for their own doctors office visits and lab tests . Also short time hospital stays were also paid for out of pocket, in other words they were in the free market system, they could not charge more than people could or would pay. At this time some of the unions and a few others had first time coverage by their insurance but by-in-large most people were in the market system.
It was about this time when many started to push for insurance with office visits, prescriptions and first time hospital stays included. In effect doctors, drug companies and hospitals were moved out of the free market system into a social system operated by insurance companies. Insurance companies are nothing more than large social groups to spread the cost of something among its members. Also about this time large and ridiculous law suits were instigated and judgments awarded against doctors. Doctors started to send patients out to labs and specialty places to protect themselves. Malpractice insurance rates became extremely expensive. Of course the people did not care because the insurance paid it all or so we thought.
So in effect we have been moving into a socialized medicine for over 40 years, the system is now broken and completely out of control. Moving from insurance to the government just removes it that much further out of the free market system. We need to move the other direction.
We need tort reform and we need to move first time coverage including doctors, drugs, and hospitals into the free market system. Insurance is being used as a maintenance program moving it out of the market system, therefore the free market system has little or no effect on medical prices. Insurance should be used for longtime and catastrophic expenses and not first or short time visits. Moving the health care system back into the free market would likely precipitate changes with major reforms and price adjustments. Are our politicians really after medical reform that works, or is it about control and power (I wish I was wrong here folks, but I do not think I am) it is certainly not about freedom and power to the people. Why don’t we try something that has worked in the past instead of an experiment?
Why do we always have to fix something that isn't broken thus creating something that is broken! People, you have heard it for yourselves...straight from the presidents mouth, he will not take his family off the glorious government benefits that he and all his political cronies receive and put them on the new proposed health care system. It's OK for you and me, but not OK for the politicians! I say politicians have to start living like ordinary citizens, not like the kings they think themselves to be!
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