Health debate not new, same old stuff

The health-care debate that's going on in America right now is not a new debate. It is historic and most likely is a game changing decision that will come from the supreme court, that will change the face of the debate, politics, health care, legislation and presidential politics for a generation. This debate however has been going on since about the time that Social Security was created.

Essentially we are still wrestling with the same questions, we are still asking the same things, we are restating what has already been said thousands and thousands of times and we are going around in circles. This debate really is not about health care, not really. The argument is framed around health care, the discussion is centered on states rights versus constitutional federal authority, and at some level is about your grandchildren and your grandmother at the same time.

Depending upon two things you will have a different opinion of this than the person next to you. The two things are your age, and your politics. This is really a transparent debate that is about paying for service. No one is debating that health care costs are higher than they've ever been. No one is debating that the cost of health care is rising, is going to continue to rise and that we have to do something drastic and radical as a society to rein in the cost. No one is saying that expensive medical procedures should only be offered to those that can pay for it ,although that is insinuated heavily throughout the language of the law and in the appeals.

Essentially if you are younger and you lean toward the left a little you favor this law. The same holds true if you are older and you lean a little to the right you probably still favor this law. More than likely if you view yourself as a centrist and not as a liberal or a conservative in a strict sense on either side you probably favor this law. The people that do not favorite are the ones that have money, insurance, and jobs. That is a broad stroke generalization I understand. Asking who is not in favor of this law is sort of like saying who is in favor of letting old people starve? Of course no one is in favor of that.

Here is the problem. If you do not have a job, or you have a job that doesn't make much money or you work in an industry that does not offer insurance, or quite possibly you are young and healthy and have not considered the need for insurance to be a priority or any of a host of reasons for not having insurance, then when you are an eventual consumer of health care, then one of  two things happens. One you are treated and are then saddled with a large medical bill or several large medical bills, and then you are paying on them the rest of your life. Or two, same thing happens you are saddled with a large bill and you just don't pay for it, or pay very little of the total cost. This is the sticking point. This is why people are not in favor of Obama care.

What do you mean Mike? The people that are not in favor of this law say that without regard to the ability of someone to pay, and without consideration of paying for people that cannot afford health care, that it should be universal. The people that are in favor of this law say why should my health care costs be larger because you did not look forward enough in your life to have the insurance necessary to help defray the costs. In other words it was your problem why do I have to pay for it?

This is what the so-called individual mandate attempts to correct. I think they went about it the wrong way and I think the Supreme Court will overturn this portion of the law, but what they were trying to do is level the playing field because eventually everyone is a consumer of health care, whether they are insured or not. Eventually every human being on this planet needs a doctor's care for something.

In some societies physician care is a socialized issue and everyone gets care, in other countries like America is a democratic society and you choose where and when to consume that care. In some societies the health care is substandard, in others is provided for free or doesn't exist. In the United States of America however we choose to treat health-care like grocery shopping. Pick your own plan, cafeteria style insurance, exist on the fringe and use the emergency room as your Dr., or ignore medical care altogether and do without. Up until now that has been perfectly acceptable policy to allow individuals to make health care decisions based on this model.

What the law attempts to do is similar to how many states regulate automobile insurance. the state doesn't tell you what kind of car you can drive, what time you can start driving, what time you have to stop, what road you can take or where you can go. The state however does say that if you're going to drive a vehicle in the state,  that vehicle must absolutely be insured or you lose your licesne to drive.

Essentially (with much more structured language) that's what this law says about personal health. It says you can still make the choice about what Dr. go to, about whether you want to go to the doctor today or not, about whether or not you still want to use the same Dr. and whether or not you would rather use an intermediate care facility instead. All of those are still your choice according to this law. The only thing that is stipulated is to say that you have to have insurance,  because eventually you will be a consumer of health care at some point,  for some reason, and society should not have to pay for it. It makes the argument that everyone else should not have to pay for your health care and/or choice to not have insurance.

The problem is with all of its penalties and fines and mandates is it does not address the inequality in American life in any way. This law will never affect the millionaire, the big high-tech tycoon, the rich CEO. It will never affect the millions of people that are fortunate enough to have employment that provides insurance throughout their adult working life. Every professional athlete can safely ignore this law and all of its structure because it will not affect them .These people will only benefit from this law if and when other people are forced against their will to buy insurance or pay a fine because it will allegedly reduce health care costs overall by collecting revenue from everyone instead of only a portion of the cost from the consumers of health care. I'm very skeptical that even if this law was put in practice that my health-care costs will go down any. I think that even if 100% of the American public had healthcare insurance, because we allow the insurance companies to set up shop in such a disjointed fashion our healthcare costs continue to rise no matter what because it is built into the system for insurance companies to collect more revenue.

It will affect however hundreds of millions of people negatively from the moment that is made law. Rightly or wrongly it require every person that earns an income to have insurance. Rightly or wrongly it will require every person that earns an income to pay for insurance at some level. They will either pay for it out of every paycheck or will reduce the tax refund at the end of the year because they were fined for not having it. Or it may cost them the ability to work somewhere because the employer had to absorb that cost and did not hire that one more person that would've gave them a job where insurance was provided. There is a virtual world where this fallacy of universal health care exists. It doesn't exist anywhere in reality however. There is no model on the face of the planet were universal health care actually is practiced effectively.

Here is what is the coming perfect storm that no one is talking about.

The largest consumer ofsociety in the world (USA) with the largest number of soon-to-be retiring workers (baby boomers), are all going to be retiring in the next few years. At just about the same time as the Social Security system begins to have its largest payout ever, the Medicaid and Medicare systems will also start paying on a larger scale than ever before. Put into the mix of this, a health care law that creates a new confusing dynamic and regulates a market that hasn't even been created yet today as we speak, and millions of people that are aging and will be the largest by percentage consumers of health care, will also be the sickest the most in need of medical care. It's a health care Armageddon waiting to happen.

That's what the argument is about really. Who pays for your grandma and grandpa. if you're 30 years old I think the answer is you do based on this law. I think that's true because grandma and grandpa's is going to be living with you (or you moved in with them 10 years ago).

The last part of the argument is to ask the question why are we not hearing anything from the health insurance industry on this law.? the answer to that question is fairly easy to find. Just look directly at the reelection campaign signs of every liberal congressman and senator in the United States. Every one of them are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from opposition groups and healthcare organizations and drug companies and everything else that's associated with medical care in the United States. Almost every size insurance company is backing this law to become law, and to be fully implemented across the board. You know why that is?

Because it's about the money. See we allow our healthcare industry to operate in such a manner that it forces premium costs to rise because that's the way the system was built to operate. Every company is rated according to their employees ages and sexes and other factors and then each company is assigned a group number. Each group was then offered a series of choices for insurance that costs a certain amount of money to obtain. Inside the group you pay less outside the group you pay more. They also rate the companies by their size about how many people would be in their group, about how many of their employees would choose to pay for the insurance and several other factors like that. This system has been driving healthcare costs up since the 60s. This is really what is wrong with health care cost.

We rate individuals in their individual companies and assigned them payment structures based upon their group level. Then we talk about healthcare as one number $2.6 trillion or 15% of the annual gross domestic product like it is consumed at one level in every location. That's how the healthcare companies want you think about it, that's exactly what they want you to hear.

This means nobody ever asked the question,"why don't you just rate everybody in America as part of the same group and charge us all the same thing for what ever kind of insurance protection we desire?"

I guarantee you that the minute you do that two things would happen, and nothing would get accomplished.

1) The Conservatives would raise bloody hell. The reason why the conservatives would raise bloody hell is because that would sound like socialized medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth but that would matter. The truth doesn't get a plate at this dinner table.

2) The Liberals would raise bloody hell. the reason why the liberals would late raise bloody hell is because it would cut off their funds (their war chests) for reelection. No healthcare company/drug company nor any other healthcare related company would bother donating millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to reelection campaigns if it wouldn't allow them to set the agenda and accomplish their own goals.

Would not do a single thing to help the American public, to help the uninsured, to help the struggling family, or make America a better place to live. It's the same thing as the reason why were paying too much for oil.

Greed in America corporate life and the crossover greed in American political life. It is essentially the same thing.


Thanks for reading my rant

– Big Mike