Universal Health Care

Sleeping Itzl

Originally uploaded by nodigio

http://www.newsweek.com/id/111811

“Experts say the health care plans put forth by Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are very similar – and Obama himself has said his proposal has 95 percent in common with hers. But that other 5 percent is a source of contention.”

I am not an expert, but based on my own assessment of the universal health plans offered, Clinton’s imposes penalties and punishments for those who don’t want to pay for her universal health care plan while Obama’s allows people to refuse without penalties. Clinton would support wage garnishment and mandatory enrollment to force people to participate in her universal health care plan.

“Clinton says that her plan would save $2,200 for the average family. Obama’s campaign requested an analysis from three Harvard professors, who estimated an average savings of $2,500. Both intend to achieve these savings primarily through increased efficiency – electronic medical records and a focus on preventive care are paramount – and curbing incidental administrative expenditures like underwriting and prescription costs.
“Your average family’s spending,” he tells FactCheck, “should be around $4,500 out of pocket on their premiums and expenditures;”

Yanno, if I wasn’t forced to pay for medical insurance, my out-of-pocket medical expenses, averaged out over the actual cost of my medical bills over the last 25 years would be under $10.00 per year. Yep, that’s right – some of us don’t need medical coverage because we are supremely healthy. If my genetics bears out, I’ll live to be over 100 and remain healthy the entire time – I’ll die of some freak accident or an act of war. Not one of my family has ever died of old age or had a chronic ailment. Broken bones, the occasional cold, easily avoided allergy reactions, these are what we suffer from and all of these are easily and best treated at home with rest, food, and time.

I don’t like health insurance for one big and glaring reason – my medical care should be decided by me and my doctor, not some pennypincher who thinks the bottom line is more important than my health and well-being.

If my mother had been treated as the doctor wanted her treated, and not according to “standard procedure” to comply with insurance requirements, she’d still be alive. I don’t want the government deciding what health care I will receive, and denying me treatments my doctor and I think I need. I don’t want some nurse denying procedures because she’s in a bad mood – something I saw happen more than once while I worked at an insurance company. I don’t want the nurses hired to decide who gets which procedures and care to be working under quotas and dollar restrictions.

Money should certainly be a consideration, but it should be the consideration of the doctor and me – not someone who takes over $600 a month out of my pocket for “insurance” (that’s $7,200 a year) and insists I pay deductibles, co-payments, and a large variety of “uncovered” expenses on top of that. Yep – I’ve paid an average of $6,000 a year for 25 years for health insurance. I had to pay full price for the one and only doctor visit I made in those whole 25 years (last summer) because I still had to pay the co-pay and deductibles, so it cost me $150,150.00, just to be told I was suffering an allergy reaction they couldn’t treat because the insurance didn’t cover it; I’d just have to wait it out. I could have saved $150.00 by not going to the doctor.

I think universal health care will operate in much the same way – if I go to the doctor for some health issue, I will be told a) the problem isn’t covered (or treatment isn’t approved) andb) I’d have to cough up some co-pay or deductible dollar amount, then c) go home and take care of the problem myself. I’d rather opt out, thank you very much, and if I could opt out of the health insurance I’m paying now, I so very would!

In the end, both candidates are simply offering campaign rhetoric with no solid, workable facts behind it.

Medical costs exceed 2 trillion dollars a year and both Obama and Clinton say their universal health care plans will only cost Americans a few billion a year ($110 billion for Clinton, $65 billion for Obama and that their plans will save Americans about $150-200 billion a year. That doesn’t compute even for someone with discalculia. We’re still looking at medical expenses of around 2 trillion dollars. What they’re offering isn’t even a tithing of what is being spent.

How do they – either one of them – realistically expect this to work?

I can tell you what has a chance of working, and I noticed that we are quietly implementing some of these things without any government participation at all.

1. Doctors offering discounts for cash-paying patients – the doctor gets paid better and the patient gets a financial break – and both get to make the medical decisions without a penny-pinching third party ixnaying what they decide. Did you know many doctors are paid only pennies on the dollar by insurance companies and Medicare/Medicaid?

2. Quick in/out clinic staffed by physician’s assistants and nurses for minor problems (colds, strep throat tests, sprains, simple stitches, well-baby check ups, monitoring blood sugar/pressure, etc.) springing up in or near pharmacies (Walgreen’s, CVS, Target…) so people don’t have to go to ERs for non-life-threatening yet still urgent medical care.

3. Low cost generic pharmaceuticals. Still can’t buy good Sudafed without giving up your first born, but it’s getting cheaper (other than the loss of your first born, that is).

4. Availability of home tests for a myriad of minor or chronic health problems so people don’t have to visit a doctor weekly or monthly anymore.

5. Information on preventive care for a variety of ailments is being spread around so people dohn’t have to visit the doctor as often as they don’t get sick as often.

6. Low cost vaccinations which reduce or eliminate certain diseases are more widely available (some are free, depending upon your age and the venue where you get the vaccination).

7. Lots of treatment and symptom information is widely available, although this can backfire as some people scare themselves into thinking they have some rare or fatal disease when all they have is a kidney infection. On the flip side, they’ll reassure themselves they have indigestion when they have an esophogeal ulcer or worse. u, the need to visit one of those quickie clinics at Walgreen’s, where they can be referred to a doctor or a specialist.

With those spontaneously coming into existence, health care is becoming more convenient, more in the control of the patient (where it squarely belongs), and more cost effective even for lower income people.

There are ways to boost the positive effects of these things that won’t impose a financial burden on the working Americans or the rich. Instead of insisting on everyone being treated under some sort of insurance policy – either a privately adminsitered one like most current health care insurances or government administered ones like Medicare, Medicaid, or the Universal Health Care Plan being pushed by politicians – we ought to consider ways that would further empower the patient and the doctor/patient relationship.

One way would be to set a portion of the tax dollars we pay into a special Health Care Account. We’d have a debit card for that account that we could use to take money out of it to pay for our health care – quickie clinic visits, prescriptions, durable medical equipment, physical therapy, bandaids, aspirin, eye exams, glasses, hearing exams, hearing aids, tooth cleanings, dentures, etc. people could choose to set aside a portion of their paycheck (pre-tax dollars!) to contribute to this account, and employers could choose to contribute to it in place of a heath insurance plan (or they could split – contribute some to the Health care account and some towards some kind of health insurance plan). The money in this account would be tax-free.

Newborns would be set up with an account paid for by the state and federal government until they were 18, when the would take over the accounts themselves. Parents and grandparents could contribute to this account as a tax deduction so long as the child was a minor or in college. 100% of the money put into such an account would be tax-free and tax-deductible for employers and family members contributing to it.

There needs to be some work on how chronic conditions, permanent birth defects, and disabilities owuld be handled, but it shouldn’t be too hard to come up with some workable combination of Health Care Account, insurance, and Medicaid to help with their healthcare.

Yes, there will be those who abuse it – can you think of a single system that doesn’t have someone clever enough to find some way around t or to abuse it? Should we allow those few to prevent all the rest of us from enjoying the benefits of it?

Private health insurance would still be available for those who want it – and the premiums could be paid for out of the Health Care Account. They could opt for a comprehensive health insurance plan, a major medical plan, a hospitalization plan, or any combination or variety of plans.

See, I believe people will be more careful of spending money for health care if they know what it really costs, if they have to actually see the money exchanging hands (as it were) and get an itemized receipt for the care.

I believe doctors will be able to charge a fair and reasonable price to all their patients without having to consider what the insurance companies and government agencies would really pay them.

With people more conservative in their doctor visits, the healthcare industry would be less stressed and mistakes caused by over-work would be reduced. Mistakes happen, and we can at least eliminate the ones cauesd by too little sleep, too much stress, and overwork.

Since we are already shifting in this direction anturally, I think we should encourage it.