Health Care: A Right or a Service?
As we contemplate how to disentangle ourselves from the Obamacare debacle, here are a few thoughts and questions to consider from a physician’s perspective. First, we must decide whether we believe that health care is a right or a service. If health care is a right, then isn’t legal assistance also a right? Shouldn’t all lawyers then be nationalized as well? If health care is provided by the federal government, will it just become another method of income redistribution as it has been for Medicare? Many do not realize that the amount seniors pay for Medicare goes up as income goes up. Will the revenue collected for any national health care program just become another pot of money that can be dipped into for other unrelated expenditures as it has been for Social Security?
Nationalized Health Care and the National Debt
In 2008 the National Debt was $10 trillion. By 2016 it had doubled to $20 trillion. Whichever way we go on the health care issue, it must be compatible with a substantial lowering of the national debt. The preexisting condition provision must be strictly regulated in order to make any health care system fiscally sound. Enrollees must begin making contributions to the plan as soon as they ‘graduate’ from their parents’ plan at age 26 and they must maintain continuous coverage throughout their lives to be eligible for benefits. Allowing someone to receive health care benefits at the last minute would be akin to buying insurance for your home after the fire starts. The Affordable Care Act purportedly covers 20 million individuals, a figure which is thought to be an overestimation. Assuming that it is correct, then this poorly conceived plan covers only 6% of the current U.S. population of 325 million. Would it really be that difficult to transition these folks by attrition back to a well-regulated free market based healthcare system that includes assistance for the needy?
Do We Really Need Nationalized Health Care?
In 2008 the United States had the best medical care in the world. Anything we do now must at least restore health care to that same high level of service. Before the inappropriately named Affordable Care Act, few citizens of the United States went without health care. Laws mandated that everyone, regardless of their insurance coverage or financial ability, be seen in emergency rooms. Many low income families were cared for in city and county hospitals located right in the neighborhoods where they lived. Many of these public hospitals are affiliated with medical schools and teaching programs where eminent professors of medicine made daily rounds on these patients. Were these folks any better off under Obamacare? All things considered, one has to wonder what the motives were behind this ill-conceived dalliance with socialized medicine. Fortunately, we now have the opportunity to reclaim our world class system of medical care.