Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Healthcare- or Insurance?

It seems to be the prevailing notion among nearly everyone that the 'healthcare' bill currently in the Congress will institute some sort of 'universal system'.

Not quite. Of course, I'd have quite a bit more respect for Congress if they'd just go all the way if they absolutely must pass some sort of healthcare bill and just give us a universal system. It's not as if they listen to their constituency in any case.

The bill(s) currently being proposed will not create any kind of system at all; they will merely give more power to what we already have in place. The bills will mandate health insurance coverage for every man, woman, and child, in the US, and create a radically expanded Medicare-like program for those who cannot afford private health insurance (my family would be one of these families).

However, I do not believe this will solve the problem. The insurance companies are the problem, not the lack of government involvement. Insurance companies are corrupt from the bottom up. They deny coverage to many on a regular basis, sometimes for the most idiotic reasons. They jack rates on those who are 'at risk', and people still go bankrupt.

The current bills will only cause that corruption to spread wider, and will put yet more people at the mercy of the insurance companies. Furthermore, I believe some people will simply not get coverage, as they do now, because the fines imposed for the lack of insurance will be much less than getting the actual insurance.

So these bills will not be creating a 'universal system', and will not truly solve anything.


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5 comments:

Christopher said...

Amazingly, I agree with you. But are you referring to the AIG bill?

Joyful_Momma said...

I think there are simpler solutions
than the massive bills being proposed. Deregulation would be a good first step. Putting more strain on the insurance companies won't help. Creating more dependance on government will not help in the long term.

I think we need to streamline and improve the medicaid and medicare programs we have, not make more beauracracy.

Kyla Denae said...

Yeah, something we can agree of Christopher! LOL

I'm not familiar with the 'AiG' bill. Is that the one where the bonuses for companies will be disallowed?

Christopher said...

The AIG bill was the technical name for the last health care bill being considered by Congress, although I don't think it had a public option. In my opinion, it wasn't what we needed, whether or not we need a public option.

Bard said...

I would have to agree with you Joyful_Momma, this will do nothing but degrade healthcare and create more dependence (required by law) on the government. The biggest thing we could do to help healthcare is tort reform and keep the government out of things.

The government has absolutely no responsibility to insure healthcare to the citizens. It must protect their right to pursue healthcare, but that does not mean making it affordable. Nobody (yet) forces you to do business with an insurance company, if they do not abide by the services they contracted with you to provide, you can hire a layer and take them to court. If you do not make sure that you truly understand what you are buying from the insurance company, and the policy you purchase just doesn’t do what you would like it to, well, that is your fault.

This idea that health insurance companies are getting rich by holding out services promised to their customers is generally untrue on both counts. Last year they had a feeble 2.2 percent profit margin as a group. Health care is expensive because of layers, people that do not take responsibility for their own health, and government regulation. Insurance companies have a tough job trying to make their services profitable (the goal of every business….not an evil thing), valuable to the consumer, and affordable.