I just read a blog where the blogger was complaining about people opposing the government paying for her health care. Her argument was that she had a child with mental issues and the bills were piling up despite her job having insurance coverage for her that she pays $300 out of $900 a month on. The first part of my response was as follows:
Who pays the government for the government to pay your medical expenses? Taxpayers. Your advocating taking more money out of MY pocket so YOU don't have to pay YOUR expenses? No Ma'am. I feel ya but I got enough of my own expenses. Maybe the govt can get a car insurance option that will keep my car running for free?
Not being the kind to just complain, I offered my opinion on what would make things more affordable in health care. I will delve deeper into the details here.
If they really want to drive down cost, let insurance companies cross state lines and compete with one another. People will choose the ones with the lowest cost/best quality. Currently insurance companies have to be licenses state by state and cannot cross state lines without holding multiple licenses. This stifles competition and causes prices to rise, especially in states where they may be taxed more. Why should the same insurance coverage cost 30% more than the state right next to it? Competition drives down prices.
Get rid of HMO's that limit your care options to certain doctors and hospitals so people can shop around for the best prices in health care. Prices will drop to stay competitive. Again, we go back to free market economics. If you need an operation, why should you pay $30,000 for said operation when the hospital in the next town over you can get the same operation for $25,000? And so on. You will go where there is both lower price and equal quality. In an HMO, you cannot. For my stomach problem I had to see 5 different doctors because they kept leaving the HMO or changing to a different one. As a result I had to repeat the whole process each time and it cost much more money.
Take regulations off insurance companies to cover elective services like face lifts and sex changes. Keep insurance for those who really are sick. It used to be that insurance would only be for catastrophic issues such as car accidents and operations, broken bones or serious illness. Now every little doctor visit is covered. We used to have to pay the $50 for a physical ourselves. Now that same physical costs $300 plus dollars, but we only pay maybe $25 of it. If we had to pay for it, we would be outraged at $50 for an aspirin, and other such outrageous charges. We’d buy our own aspirin for $5 for a whole bottle at the Osco. Elective surgeries were just that, elective and not covered. Part of our insurance payments go for tummy tucks and adadicktome’s. That’s fine if people want to do those things, but having it covered by insurance means I am paying for it in my premiums.
Insist that doctors fix problems instead of prescribing pharmaceuticals that just mask symptoms. If we took the time to really find the problem instead of just writing prescriptions, we would have healthier people long term. This would drive down cost as less people would need care. What they call it is managed care. In other words, keep the people on the pills for life and never really fix the health issue. Pharmaceuticals are making billions on people being sick, not people being well. We don’t complain though when we only pay a $5 co-pay to just feel better. If we had to pay the $25 per pill, we’d be up in arms and want to be healed so we wouldn’t have to take and pay for the stupid pills.
The more insulated we are from the costs of health care, the more out of hand the cost will get. We all pay for it in the end, whether it is higher premiums or higher taxes. Nothing is for free
3 comments:
It annoys me to no end how much of my money goes to pay people with excuses. People who "can't work" yet keep popping out kids. The only problem is, the kids suffer and I don't want the kids to suffer. It's just so irritating to me that these people are able to sponge off the system and sit around all day doing whatever they want while I'm out working to fund it.
It annoys you and many others. Why should our hard earned money be taken out of our pockets and given to those who have not earned it? I'm all for charity, but when we are forced to pay for others, it is no longer charity.
You say she's paying $300 out of $900, maybe that's all she can afford. She's probably poor, should we just forget about her, and all other poor people in similar situations, and leave her child to die because he wasn't lucky enough to be born to someone who can afford his health?
Letting insurance programs cross state lines is not going to fix the problem. I don't know for what reason you have the delusion that "competition drives down prices."
Example, a company in Tennessee (where the cost of living is way smaller than in New York) is not going to come to New York City and give us Tennessee prices, it's actually going to raise it to compete with the high prices we already have. Companies want to make money, not look after our health.
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