Fear is a great motivator, and is useful for short term situations. It prompts us to jump out of the way of the oncoming car, and it prompts us to cross the dimly lit street when there is a gang of young kids wearing hoodies and carrying baseball bats in your path. But fear is not a place to make long term rational decisions from.
What has this to do with health care? Almost everyone I have talked with has approached the health care discussion from fear. We have all heard the sad stories about people with no or little health care and the economic hardship it caused them, and most people, subconsciously are thinking “God, that could be me… I want to figure out how to make someone else pay for it.” I know you, my reader, will probably deny this because you don’t want it to be true, but it is. You are thinking from fear.
The basic premise for the fear is also true; you could face real economic hardship because of the cost of health care. However, the real problem is that it is so expensive, far more so than it should be. Wouldn’t it make more sense to use our collective brain power to figure out how to make health care affordable instead of how to mandate that someone else pick up the tab?
At my last colonoscopy in a local hospital, I was charged $13,000 for the procedure including $2800 to lie on a gurney in the hall for 2 hours as recovery room time. During that time, no medical staff checked on me, I just waited there until a nurse removed my IV 2 hours later. How can this be justified? I don’t think it can. Compare that to my first which was done in a doctors office for a total charge of $700 ($1024 adjusted for inflation) 20 years ago. Something is wrong, and it is not who is paying the bill, it is the bill itself.
Then there is the issue of supporting an entire industry which provides no health care, but adds greatly to its cost. I am talking about insurance of course. When I visit my family doctor, he has a team of people dedicated to billing insurance companies. Who pays for that? We all do. On the other end of that connection, there are thousands of people employed by health insurance companies who decide whether or not to pay my claim. Who pays their salaries? We all do. Who pays the 15% profit margin1 which is the average for the health insurance business? We all do, and no one ever got well by taking a big dose of Blue Cross.
1) http://biz.yahoo.com/p/522qpmd.html