As the debate becomes louder and stronger, Obama is starting to sound a bit worried, don’t ya think?
WHY is he trying so hard to push his “health care” initiative through as quickly as he is? This is a huge bill which will change the entire health care system in the US. It’s not something that needs to be rushed, it’s something that needs to be thought out and considered, as well as debated, before coming up with any vote. Yet Obama wants it done NOW!!!! Why?
Well, Obama says that healthcare as we know it is in crisis. He says that if we don’t make these sweeping changes immediately, things in healthcare will get a great deal worse and quickly. But are we really in a crisis? Well, let’s check the numbers.
According to all statistics, there are approximately 47 million uninsured people in the US. What most of those who quote that statistic though don’t tell you is the breakdown of those stats like Investors Business Daily did in an Aug 29, 2007 article found here.
I’m not going to argue the stats at all. What I want to do is find out WHY Obama is pushing so hard to get this thing passed as quickly as he can. While I agree that there are issues with the healthcare system, I question the need to completely overhaul an entire system because a few parts of it are messed up. It’s like junking a car because the brakes need to be replaced and it needs a tune up.
There are some things that definitely need to be fixed in order to help ease the costs of healthcare. One of those things is the lawsuits. In some cases, there is definite call for a lawsuit but there are MANY lawsuits that are frivolous and because of them, malpractice insurance is exorbitant, which contributes to the high fees that many doctors have to pass on to the insurance companies, or the states in some cases, or in the case of someone who is uninsured, the patient themselves.
Another BIG contributor to the cost of healthcare is the government, believe it or not. In the case of Medicaid and Medicare, the doctors and hospitals send in the bills to the government for reimbursement, and will usually get about 2/3 of the actual bill paid. The rest gets eaten by the hospital or doctor. If the doctor or hospital is lucky, they will receive about 65¢ on the dollar from Medicare for the care they are billing for.
A third thing of course is that most people who are uninsured are uninsured because of 3 main reasons. First and foremost is cost. Affordable healthcare is definitely hard to come by. Most who have insurance via their employer have part of their premiums paid by that employer, many times as much as 75% or more of the cost. For example, my MONTHLY premiums, according to an annual mailing done by my insurance company, is about $1100 for the family plan. My weekly payroll deduction is about $60. Of course, that’s just an example, and fortunately my company is able to afford to pay out the rest. Otherwise, I probably would be one of those in the statistics of not having healthcare insurance.
Also, one of the issues tends to be the “pre-existing condition”. Many who can’t get health care insurance have that for their reason. In many cases, health insurance won’t cover “pre-existing conditions” if there is a gap between the time that you start that insurance and what you previously had. That in my opinion is ridiculous.
Of course, unemployment is also a big reason, especially these days. Have you seen the cost of COBRA? WOW! The average person can’t afford to continue their insurance via COBRA because, in most cases, the cost comes close to, or in many cases, exceeds the unemployment benefits that the person is receiving.
NONE of the issues listed above are above resolution. ALL can be fixed without totally overhauling the entire healthcare system.
In part 2 I’m going to talk about what is IN the healthcare bill that we really need to consider before deciding whether we, as a nation, can afford to accept it.
