OBAMACARE:
WHEN YOU WANT SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY YOUR DOCTOR BILLS, by Wayne Smith
III, 2/7/17
I discovered the problem
with our healthcare system – We want someone else to pay for our healthcare! We
want $50 monthly insurance premiums and zero out-of-pocket costs. To the
chagrin of the entitled, this is an impossibility.
Insurance is a zero-sum
game – it merely transfers healthcare costs from one person to another(s). The
total of all healthcare expenses must equal the total of all health insurance
premiums paid, plus any co-pays and deductibles.
For every person whose
health care costs exceed their premiums paid, there must be another person(s)
whose premium dollars paid, exceed their healthcare costs. There is no money
tree growing on the back lawn of the White House.
One of the issues with
Obamacare was the requirement that no applicant be denied coverage or required
to pay a higher premium, based on preexisting conditions. While many believe
that is the right thing to do, it is, in fact, creating the very problem
mentioned above – wanting someone else pay for my healthcare.
For every high health
cost person added to the insurance ranks, the rest of us need to pay higher
premiums to cover the increased cost to the system (my personal premiums and
deductibles have increased over 100% following Obamacare, and 40% this year
alone). While we made insurance more affordable to the high health cost
individuals, we made insurance less affordable for the rest of us.
We need to decide if
health insurance is a right, or an option. Except when purchased through an
employer, no other type of insurance, be it life, disability, etc. has
guaranteed issue without regard for one’s health. While health care costs can
financially ruin a family, the premature death of a breadwinner, or even worse,
the disablement of said person can lead to far worse financial outcomes.
So, how is this health
insurance problem solved? Either we go to universal healthcare, or, we increase
the penalty tax on those that do not have coverage, to an amount equal to the
least expensive healthcare plan available to them. The latter option increases
the premium dollars placed into the system to offset the higher costs of
providing insurance to those who experience higher than average claims. Unless
we remove significant costs from the healthcare system, any solution other than
these two is just rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
Another option, being floated around the Trump
administration, is the use of Health Savings Accounts. I can see this working
if we create catastrophic coverage plans – policies with $20k, $50k, or even
$100k deductibles.
Redirecting current funds spent on insurance premiums to our
personal HSA accounts would allow use of those funds to pay for our own health
costs. What? Pay our own health costs? What a novel idea. Then, we might just
get serious about taking on the real enemy – us!
Comments
Healthcare
costs won’t be reduced until prices are forced to be controlled by the law of
supply and demand. That means government subsidies must be reduced before the
medical community will figure out how to cure us cheaper.
They
could do this now and do it easily, but they don’t have to as long as
government is propping up the prices.
Congress
needs set up a 10 year funding reduction schedule to cut funding for Medicaid
and Medicare and publish it and let the Healthcare providers follow it.
Norb Leahy,
Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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