Medical Benefits: Health Care Reform
You can't tune into the news these days without hearing about health care reform. How should the health care system be structured so it meets the needs of all Americans? How do we make it accessible and responsible? How will we reform the system without putting a strain on our economy?
All the above issues on health care are extremely important and need to be addressed. Personally though, I don't think enough attention is being given to the actual costs of health care. Instead we seem to only want to focus on the delivery of health care which really only makes up a small portion of the costs. All this time and energy is going into deciding on a public option or private insurance options, when the real issue is the actual cost of care itself. Regardless of who delivers it...the cost of health care continues to sky-rocket because of a multitude of different factors. Factors including American lifestyles, deficient information technology, cost shifting generated from unpaid claims by the uninsured or underinsured (Medicare) to the insured, pharmaceutical mark-ups, defensive medicine due to malpractice litigation, and much more.
Let's address the first factor- the American lifestyle. Obesity is now a crisis in our nation. From obesity we get new cases of diabetes, heart conditions, and a plethora of other issues every day. The problem with this is there is no accountability for our lifestyle decisions- I deserve to be happy therefore I'm going to eat 3 twinkies, chase it with a 6-pack, and smoke a Camel non-filter for dessert. When I develop a heart condition is it the responsibility of someone else to care for me? I don't mean to sound insensitive because I have a grandmother who suffered from a thyroid problem and caused her to gain quite a bit of weight. But, is the real problem in America thyroid disease or entitlement problems? Is health insurance a right or a privilege? No one is denying access to care. You can go right down the street to the Emergency Room and check yourself in with or without insurance. Many of us just won't be able to foot the bill because the COST is so high- which is why some people purchase insurance. I don't want to fix the insurance. I want to systematically fix the issues affecting health care insurance...starting with our compounding "Entitlement Culture". What makes health care reform so difficult is we have to address ALL the issues, not just one or two of the issues. Our American culture issue is only part of the problem.
Stay tuned for next month's topic...