The Health Care Debate From Another Perspective

When I was growing up in Central Texas I cannot remember us having health insurance. Companies only offered such benefits to the corporate leadership and unfortunately my dad, having very little education and less ambition, never made it to the corner office or any other for that matter. So when we kids got sick going to the doctor came right out of the monthly budget. Needless to say, we didn't go very often. As a comparison, my grandson has been to the doctor more in his first 9 months than I did in my first nine years. Thankfully both of us were blessed with good health or he would have been much more. The key difference is funding of these visits. My son-in-law has good insurance for his family so it costs them a reasonable co-pay for each visit. The insurance covers the balance. Any visit to the doctor for me or my siblings would have probably had to be paid out in installments.

Before you think I am going to break out in the "I walked 10 miles in the snow to school" song that is not the purpose of the above. It is to illustrate the progress we have made over the years in providing for preventative care and upgrading the health care of our citizens. This has been paid for by the American consumer and their employers. It is a relatively recent phenomenon that the government got involved in such matters. Also, I am not saying that people that cannot afford insurance should suffer and not get medical attention because they pay for the services. We as a society have decided to evolve past those days and commit to taking care of those that truly need the services.

The problem is that medical costs have skyrocketed at an alarming rate. Doctors are ordering more and more tests, CATSCANs or MRIs when an x-ray would be sufficient. A recent one night hospital stay cost over $20,000! Of course the amount the hospital, doctors, etc received was much less because of my insurance. The poor person without insurance would be faced with a bill well beyond his means to pay. These write-offs put the hospitals at risk and add to the burden that taxpayers or stockholders must bear.

So here are a few suggestions that would help our health care system become a little more viable:

1. Shift the burden for health care back to the individual, not the taxpayer. The first line on reducing the cost of health care is to get and stay healthy. All of the advances in medicine have not made us healthier. We can fix the problems that could have been prevented by leading a healthy lifestyle.

2. Do not reward hypochondria. It used to be a rare occasion to find such a person. Now you can't throw a rock without hitting one. Doctors know who they are. We should not have to subsidize this behavior.

3. Tort reform related to medical malpractice. Outrageous jury awards have resulted in the defensive medicine being practiced today. These additional unnecessary tests burden our health care system and drive up the costs for all of us. Limits on jury awards will send those bottom-feeding ambulance chasers somewhere else.

4. Make people pay for their health care. The insurance system has insulated us from the real cost of the care we receive because most of us pay $25 for a doctor visit and never think about it later. If we had to write that check for $125 for that office visit it would make a bigger impression on us. The system has done us a disservice and we have lost track of the true cost.

Unfortunately none of these will be considered by those maggot politicians in Washington. They are convinced that government is the answer. Not because of concern for us; because of concern for their power.