Health Insurance Unsustainable

The current insurance business model doesn’t work for Health Insurance. Excessive government subsidies for healthcare have driven the cost of treatment to unsustainable levels.  Providers have no incentive to lower their costs as long as the government is willing to throw more money at this.  The problem is the Provider Cartel.

Congress is to blame for allowing the federal government to pass Medicare and Medicaid in 1965.  Before that, treatment costs were affordable.  Corporations started subsidizing healthcare during World War II, because of government wage and price controls and unions had been carping for decades to get the business owners to pay employees’ hospital bills.

Before 1965, healthcare for the poor was handled by counties with county hospitals, county clinics and the county health department.  In addition, physicians volunteered to treat the poor in these facilities and with house-calls.  Churches sponsored hospitals and raised money to keep up with costs.  We need to return to county-based healthcare.

When government ignores the Laws of Economics, particularly the Law of Supply and Demand, it sets up a system that is designed to fail.  Either consumers must pay for their own healthcare or costs will continue to rise.

We all know the laws of supply and demand and how that law deals with costs.  When beef is too high, we buy chicken and the cost of beef goes down again.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader