Why can't everyone just have healthcare at a cheep price?
There is no simple answer to healthcare because in the reality we want two opposites, just like many things in America (want walmart prices but we think walmart employees and company should not get subsidies to keep the prices that low, we get mad at walmart workers when they need welfare programs but yet we demand lower prices) Its the same thing in healthcare. We want amazing but we want the money to come from the sky.
Now I get that there are people in this country that don't want kids like mine to have healthcare because of multiple reasons, many of which are rooted in hate, but I'm going to segment them to the side and pretend like they don't exist for this post, partially because thinking about them makes me feel ill and angry.
Now, we want healthcare and we want it cheep... but here are the issues where those two things collide:
1. Doctors cost money. Yes there are some costs that need trimming like I still struggle with the fact that our insurance is charged over $4,000 when a feeding tube is changed in one of my children, a procedure that is relatively quick. I think it is obviously worth more then $100 but I struggle with $4,000. However in many cases the charges for a doctor can be justified. We have to pay doctors a good wage for all of the years of medical school and all of the work they do. I honestly had a doctor writing me back late at night recently just to make sure my kid was ok. Many work weekends and holidays. It is not an easy job. And doctors are not a single player on a medical team. There are so many people that go into making a hospital work. As someone who spends a lot of time in hospitals I see all of the dedicated people working hard to keep my kids alive. Those people need to be paid and those people deserve to be paid well for the work they are doing. We get people from counties all over the world that are doctors here. Some of my children's best doctors were not born in this country but they are people that I am thankful for every day. To attract these doctors though we need to pay them. There needs to be an incentive.
2. Medical equipment is not cheep. Much of it can not be made in as large of scales as other things. We ordered Jillian's wheelchair last week and it is being customized to her needs but that also means that it takes more time in a factory to make it. Jillian's leg braces are made specifically for her legs. Making medical equipment for people is not a one size fits all and that increases costs.
3. Not everything has a simple fix. Most people think "I'm sick, I will go to the doctor and be better soon" but read this blog for a while and my kids will show you that is not always the case. Sometimes it takes lots of doctors and lots of specialists. We talk to someone one our medical team at least once a week. I was joking with a friend last night that it feels like talking to someone in our medical world is always on our to do list. If you have strep throat there is a guess of a cost, a dr visit, throat swab and antibiotics. With strep you will likely be fine soon and go on your way, but not everything is as simple as strep and many conditions take many dr visits and each time those cost money.
So we want everyone but we want cheep... but here is the problem, not everyone's healthcare costs are cheep.
Before ACA you had high risk pools which on paper sound ok for people who do not have underlying conditions, however the people that are in the high risk pool are having to pay crazy amounts because everyone with high medical costs are pulling from the same account and therefor more needs to be put in. The problem is that the people in high risk pools are already paying so much for medical stuff on top of insurance that it is failing the people that need the insurance most.
The idea behind insurance is that everyone is in the same pool and in thought we all share each others health costs. In reality the thought behind insurance is very Christian, loving one another and helping each other out. But a problem is also that insurance companies exist to make money. Making money at the root is not a bad thing. I like it when Brent's paycheck hits our bank account, but money can also be the root of many problems. Money often causes people to want more of it and for you to get more someone else has to get less. That is how it works. If it didn't work that way our currency would be useless. Countries have tried mass producing money before and their economy collapses. If you have an infinite amount of money then the value of it goes down. We do not have a treasury that just pumps mass amounts of dollars into circulation therefor if you have a dollar that means someone else does not. Once again that is not a bad thing, you need dollars too to pay for housing, food shelter and yes healthcare. But the problem with most companies is they like to make money despite who it hurts. Companies are not people, they are money making (or loosing) machines. That is their purpose. But it is people who are the receivers of the money and money does crazy things to people, so one of the hard things about health insurance being run by companies is that they will always be looking for how to make a profit, that is how businesses work. But in the world of insurance children like mine do not help them to make a profit, therefor they are going to charge more to everyone to boost their bottom line.
I understand health insurance is expensive. We pay for it too. We also pay for many things a month that health insurance does not cover that is medically necessary for my children. I also understand that by percentage the cost of health insurance rose more while Bush was in office in the early 2000's then when Obama was in office. They are going to keep raising prices because they can. Just look at what the CEOs of health insurance companies make, they are not hurting. I understand it takes a lot to run a health insurance company and those people need to be properly paid for their work, I don't question that at all but the amount they are being paid while life saving things for people gets denied makes me scratch my head.
I am not a person that wants government regulation in everything but I know that in some areas for the benefit of society we need it. So here are some things that I think need to be in healthcare regulation and government programs to make it so insurance works best for us as a whole:
-coverage of pre existing conditions. It is not my children's fault they were born with a genetic disorder and not giving letting them have health insurance because of it is cruel. I have been an uninsured adult before because of a pre existing condition of asthma. I was watching a news clip the other night of a baby who was denied health insurance before ACA because his body mass index was high for an adult... he was a baby! When you start picking and choosing who can be covered you are saying health insurance is only for healthy people which does not make sense, you are excluding the people who need it most. Also, anyone at anytime could have something come up in their life that then qualifies as a pre existing condition. You could go to the dr tomorrow and be diagnosed with something, just because you don't have a pre existing condition today does not mean it will always be that way.
-No limit on total dollars spent. I am talking about life time maxes. Before ACA it was not an uncommon story for someone to have cancer and hit their lifetime max very quickly and then there is no one to pay the bills for the treatment. These were hard fast numbers, once you hit x amount they paid 0. Once again any of us at any time could have anything happen that makes us hit that x, just because you are "healthy" today does not mean you will be tomorrow.
-HSA can not be used a your main healthcare source. To have money in an HSA you have to put money in it. That is how they work. Last year just one of our children's medical bills cost over $100,00... we don't make that much in a year therefor we can't put that much into an HSA. It just doesn't work. All an HSA does is take your own money and make it tax free when using it for healthcare. There is no magic that happens there, what you put in is what you can pull out.
-Block grants don't work. This has been proven over and over by independent financial analysts. The only place that block grants are good for is the federal government. They put more of a strain on states and they hurt the people who are needing the services provided by medicaid because what happens when that money runs out in July!? People just don't get health insurance for 6mo? This works if this budget item was for recreation, you spend all your vacation money in July you get no more money, logical, we do this with Jilli, you have x amount to spend once it is gone it is gone. However healthcare is not that simple. Healthcare has costs that are not always planned. I was not planning for Lydia to go into IR last week but it was needed. My other concern with block grants is congress keeping up their share of the bill. If you look into some of ACAs issues you will find that part of it was due to lack of funding by a republican congress. They are not to blame for every issue but they didn't pay the bills, making a law that requireds funding and then not paying makesthe law rather pointless. Its like me saying I want a million dollar house but not paying the bill and then getting mad when I can't have the house. Their votes have showed that they don't want to pay to fund healthcare programs but that really worries me when it comes to block grants because who says they will increase with rising costs? Who says the pot of money with actually be funded? Safegards need to be in place to make sure this money stays around because congress is really good at dipping their hands into pots of money for other things.
-We need to keep preventative care. Paying for someone to receive preventative care has been proven over and over and over again to be cheaper. Logically that needs to be left alone.
-ACA mandates that women who are working must have time to pump and a place to do it. We have no paid leave in this county causing most women to have to go back to work quickly. There are many benefits of breast feeding and it is cheaper then formula feeding (not saying formula feeding is bad, both of my children only get formula at this point). If we say women need to get back to work but are also telling them we need to breast feed then we need to give them a place to pump. That is only logical.
-We can not charge older customers 5x more for health care. They have been paying into the system for a lot longer time then younger individuals.
-Tax credits are not the same as the subsidies. There is a difference and we can not act like they do the same thing or help people the same way.
-I understand states rights. Just like it would be stupid for Wisconsin to spend a bunch of state money to make protections from hurricanes and Florida to spend a lot of money on snow plows, but at the same time is we are going to be a unified country there are some things that need to be a bottom line on healthcare issues. States that are poorer are less able to fund programs for healthcare for poor people which then in turn propels the cycle of poverty. We have to work together on things. Just like no states should be able to say that people who are not white should not be able to attend school, we need to have federal protections to make sure that everyone can get adequate healthcare.
-I worry about the thought of providing $100 billion over 10 years to states who lower healthcare costs. I am all for not spending what does not need to be spent but at the same time I worry that this incentivizes cutting life sustaining services to people. I get the thought behind this but I also get how it could do a lot of harm.
But as a leader of our country recently said, healthcare is not easy (although I find it ridiculous his claim that no one knew how hard it was). We need to find solutions that help people. Right now ACA has many things right. There are some issues, I'm not blind to that, but a lot of those issues are funding issues and insurance companies acting like companies. There is not a golden clear cut answer for health insurance. People's lives depend on it in this country, but often we think about it in terms of me. I understand that because of my children's healthcare costs the cost of everyone's healthcare is going to be higher. I get that and am thankful for everyone who pitches in. But if your children became sick tomorrow you would want the same thing correct? Most people want cheep health insurance for themselves and want it to cover everything but the fact is that the math just does not add up. Health insurance is something we need to work together on. We all pay in, we all help out and we all keep insurance companies accountable. We each try our best to make sure insurance is not being charged for things that are unnecessary because keeping costs lower help us all. But at the same time we need to be logical and we need to think about this world as an us. You do not live here on an island all by yourself totally unaffected by everyone else. God made us to be interdependent and to love and take care of one another. We each need to do our part in that.
So I keep hoping that anything that comes from healthcare reform is logical and for the people not for the pockets of some. I read and am informed about what is going on even though some days it raises my blood pressure. I write to Representatives. Healthcare is not an easy fix but I bet you if most of us sat down and talked about it most of us would agree on most things about it. Most of us are for most parts of ACA. So I challenge you today, read what all ACA covers, because it covers a lot more then you probably think, and then contact people about it. Be respectfully vocal. But don't say this doesn't effect you and bury your head because while it might not effect you today it will someday.
We need healthcare that works for the people. If we are going to leave health insurance in the hands of companies that we need to protect the people because the root of business is making money but in many instances what is best of the people when it comes to health insurance is not what is going to make the most money. We need to join together and set standards. One of the good things about this past month is that many people are learning what all is in ACA. So many people hated it just for its "name" Obamacare. Really many parts of ACA has things we all agree on and many of the things that people are worried about it either are not in there or are so exaggerated what people claim is not the truth. Remember both sides like to bend things to best suit them. I watched a video of a town hall recently and watched as a republican claimed things about ACA in such a way that they were intentionally fear mongering and that is not ok. I don't care if both sides do it, it is not ok. It goes back to the mom saying of if your friends are jumping off a bridge are you going to follow. We all know the logical answer to this question but we loose that logic someplace when it come to people in public office, we claim that they all do it in a way to justify why the person we like does it. First of all I don't believe that every last person in public office does it, I believe there are some upstanding people on both sides, but the ones that do do it get away with it and think it is ok because we come to their defense. What if we held the people we voted for accountable? I don't want skewed statistics. I am not ok with being lied to and this most defiantly applies to how we as a country handle health care.
So lets work together. Lets love one another. Sometimes in reality that is going to mean you pay more to help others, but in reality what goes around comes around. There are going to be times you need help too.
No comments:
Post a Comment