Initial Thoughts on Universal Health Care

I wanted to write another article before I left on Friday and have been meaning to take this topic on, but kept forgetting. It wasn’t until I saw an inconsequential blog about health care that I remembered this topic. I told a friend, an advocate of universal health care, that I’d get this done for him.

While universal health care sounds like an amazingly good idea (and it certainly is a gracious theory), there are complications with socialized price setting and everyone would eventually wind up losing (last paragraph in the Austrain economics post).

The empathetic complaint does not rest easily on my ears; the complaints that we have to take care of our elderly. It’s true, but universal health care isn’t the answer. In fact, within the past 40 years, doctors gave free care to the elderly, eating the cost of such an endeavor because they knew that they owed it to the elderly. This was, of course, prior to a huge amount of government intervention/medicare/medicaid.

Here’s why health care is so expensive:

HMOs generally charge people a set monthly amount, due to the inability to actually estimate the cost of routine medical visits. Because of this, HMOs want to safely minimize their costs, often denying coverage of various drugs, treatments, and procedures. Similarly, Medicare does the same. Because of this, doctors and patients are not in any negotiable situation, as both now have their hands tied by third parties. Because hospitals have been turned into corporate messes by all of this recent regulation, they now charge the maximum allowed amount, especially in an age dominated by malpractice suits. Before 1965, physicians and hospitals, as competitive, tried to charge the bare minimum to get more business. However, with HMOs/Medicare/Medicaid we now have corporate middlemen denying legitimate treatment due to costs and doctors that overcharge to cover themselves. This is what managed health care has done so far; driving costs up while watering down medical efficiency.

So, what can we do? Medical Savings Accounts. This allows a person to save up pretax dollars in a special account used for medical expenses. If this were the case, patient and physician could once again negotiate on treatment/price and doctors would be paid as the service was rendered, rather than having to wait months for the HMO/insurance provider’s billing cycle. This would, again, cut down on the need to overcharge patients and would drive up competition among physicians, as patients could choose what physician and what treatments they wanted; driving down medical costs.

There’s a doctor operating in Tennessee that opened a low-cost clinic. He will not accept insurance, medicare, or medicaid. Because of this he absolutely destroys overhead (minus the cost of equipment), can negotiate with patients on the fly, and can focus on medicine rather than billing. Some of his uninsured patients have even gone to the emergency room for non-emergency situations because no other doctor would see them. Besides, everyone knows that government clinics offer long waits and inferior treatment.

Paraphrased from The Revolution: A Manifesto

John McCain made a point about our treatment of veterans and how to make health care affordable. Barack Obama talked about making health care affordable and legally required for children. The flaw with both Senator Obama’s and Senator McCain’s position is that neither acknowledge that government subsidization and regulation created this health care catastrophe. Prior to 1965, American health care was the envy of the world. However, when the government decides that it has to get involved, costs go up and efficiency goes down, no matter what you’re talking about. Besides, the universal health care that Senator Obama speaks of is that of the Veterans’ hospitals; if you could even call that “health” care.

If you really want to help the elderly and uninsured, cut costs down and make insurance only for emergency situations (like it used to be). There’s no reason that a routine visit should cost a couple of hundred dollars. In fact, the doctor from TN is able to charge only $35 for a visit. If you’re mad at the current health care system, blame the government for getting involved in the first place and tell them to stay out of the private sector.

The flaw with universal health care, like you’ll hear me talking about a lot,  is that it isn’t a solution to any problem, it’s an antibiotic on a deep wound (killing good and bad things in the marketplace, causing the wound temporary relief, but long-term damage). The real problem lies in the fact that there is a third party entity (government) trying to create level ground for patient and physician. The drawback is that, because of this, government will not allow either party to exist outside of itself.

Let’s break that relationship down really quick, because I’m losing faith in my ability to thoroughly explain the problems within the health care system:

Person A (Girl) and Person B (Boy) are at a bar, talking. A and B are getting along great and each motion to their friends to leave. The two of them will most likely be leaving together tonight. However, A’s attempts to have a good time are fouled as her group of friends huddle around a mutual friend, who has fallen to the ground crying about how she (Person C, now) isn’t loved, how ugly she is, and how pretty A is. Being guilted into sympathy, A goes to her friend and has to forfeit her night with B. Both A and B become dissatisfied. Let’s face it, the government is C; the girl that no one wanted to invite to the party, but had to. Otherwise she might have committed suicide and, while no one really cared, no one wanted to admit that they did not care and no one has the audacity to stand up to her over dramatic outlook on life. Government, when it becomes involved in private industry, destroys the relationship between business and consumer and cheapens any attempt at legitimacy.