A prescription for America.

Health care has always been a controversial issue when it comes to the political realm. The question is always, how much should the government be involved?

In 1993, it became a real hot-button topic and was deemed the term Hillary-Care because of Hillary R. Clinton’s involvement in the closed-door proceedings. The Clinton administration was looking to create a foundation for a program that would fulfill the goal of providing health care coverage for all Americans. The debate is back and President Obama wants a Health care bill on his desk before congress will recess at the end of July.

Healthcare does make up a large share of our economy and also a share of your income. In 2007, over 60% of bankruptcies were said to be related to the inability to pay for high health care costs according to a study conducted by The American Journal of Medicine. During the 2008 election in the October 7 debate, Tom Brokaw posed the question, "Is health care in America a privilege, a right, or a responsibility?" Obama answered that he thought of health care as a right, meaning that it is something that we should provide to all citizens like the countries of Canada or Cuba. If you have seen the movie 'Sicko' by Michael Moore, then you are aware of the great systems of healthcare provided by those countries. If you have not seen the movie, then you are better off and probably smarter for having not watched that abortion of a documentary. 

The fallacy related to government run healthcare is that everyone is covered and you can get all the treatment you need. In the United Kingdom, healthcare is rationed based upon your age and life expectancy. Women are not able to get the medicine that would cure them of breast cancer because it is too expensive. With a government-run health care system, everyone will have a price on their head and would be viewed with a cost-benefit analysis. 

Economically, health care is looked at as a luxury good. The more money you have, the more health care you will purchase. What about those who do not have the funds to purchase health care? There is the question that has stumped politicians and economists alike. There are currently 47 million who are uninsured that the government is wanting to get proper coverage for. Many of those are students and young Americans in the under 30 demographic. Why do they not have coverage? One reason is that they choose not to because they do not recognize the need for it. We are, for the most part, healthy individuals. The other argument is that they can not afford it.

Health care costs have skyrocketed over the last decade for a number of reasons: medical malpractice suits have caused a doctors liability insurance to rise, ER’s being used for regular doctors visits by those who are uninsured and unable to pay their bill and that causes what a hospital and doctor charges to be passed on to those who can pay, and there are many other reasons.

A Single payer system like Medicare/Medicaid, Co-op, individual mandates,  and a public option are amongst the ideas being floated around. The people who will lose in the end, are the taxpayers. It is estimated that the health care reform will cost $1.2 trillion and cuts have been proposed to Medicare and Medicaid to help foot the bill. Other proposals to pay for it range from taxing your insurance benefits as personal income, implementing a Value added tax that will increase the price of goods over all, even a tax on carbonated beverages.

This health care debate has gotten out of hand. When President Obama campaigned during the election, he never provided specifics and he is not providing them now. Health care reform is needed, but the problem will not be solved by trying to mandate all Americans to be covered, or by establishing a new government bureaucracy like that of Medicare and Social Security. Both of those agencies currently make up a huge portion of  our deficit. If the government can not run those systems, how can we expect them to run a health care system?

Here are a few suggestions to help preserve our current system and lower costs. First, put a cap on malpractice lawsuits, that will help to lower the costs passed from the doctor to the consumer. This would also prevent the doctors from having to practice “defensive medicine” meaning they would not have to prescribe a variety of un-needed tests just to avoid any malpractice claims and would then provide cost relief to the patient and health insurance companies. Second, encourage the construction to open free-clinics to those who are unable to pay for insurance or medical treatment, that will help to keep them out of the ER’s and passing the bill on to the other patients. Third, deregulate the health insurance industry and increase competition. And fourth, reward those who take it upon themselves and purchase their own health care by offering a tax credit to act as a partial reimbursement and apply that to employers who provide health care for their employees.

Believe it or not Uncle Sam, we know what is right for us and a government-run system is not the answer. Essentially, the free-market is.