After reading information until my eyes are crossing, I set all of that aside to do my usual approach to understanding an issue. That means I quit looking at the answers that were being thrown at me and started asking my own questions about the health care crisis and exactly why it is so important to make sure that something is done…quickly!
Here’s what I have put together in my little mind:
Health care costs have risen.
Of course it has. Over the last 20 to 30 years a lot of research has been done that has lead to new techniques in treatment and in medications. Each one of those advances has cost tremendous amounts in research and development. Typically, the costs of research and development falls upon the American citizens despite the fact that these technologies and medications are marketed world-wide. (That is why you can buy the same medication in Canada for a low price than you can here. It is also why some procedures are performed in other counties at lower rates than in the United States.)
Because of all that new technology, people are living longer and requiring more health care. People are not suddenly just deciding to live longer. It is through all of those medications and procedures that people are able to live longer. (Sometimes this becomes a big issue with making a choice of quality vs quantity of life.)
That same technology means that children that would have died 20-30 years ago, are now living much longer lives. A million dollars invested in the first year or two can insure a child lives a relatively normal life when that same child, 20-30 years ago would have died.
More and more of the medication and technology is used for fairly rare conditions and you then run into the issue of how can a rural area afford the same level of care for the 1 or 2 people who may need the advanced technology as compared to the 500 or 1000 who may need that same technology within a highly urbanized area?
Now, add to those issues the fact that a goodly chunk of your insurance premiums is used to support lobbyists, contribute to political campaigns, and more recently be spent on rabid attacks on anyone that dares to suggest that health care should be reasonable and fair for all.
I have to admit that I have a hard time understanding how anyone could be against providing fair and accessible options for health care to everyone. Maybe I am naive but I feel that having viable health care available to everyone is just the right thing to do. I really do not understand arguments against it.
Of course, there are and always will be issues that will need to be addressed to fine tune the process. Personally, I have more concerns about this ‘cooperative’ concept than I do about a ‘public option’. It was the ‘cooperative’ concept that led to the birth of Blue Cross decades ago. That was the beginning of the current health insurance crisis that we are currently embroiled in….will more of the same fix the issues? Will stepping back in time, help deal with the problems of a future that has far different problems to deal with.
I would like to have the choice of a public option. I do not have to take it. If I like another insurer’s package better I can take it. I think that is why it is called an OPTION!! Of course, I also believe that simply coming up with standardized forms would reduce the costs of health care. Ask a health care provider how much money is spent simply on processing insurance claims. Each claim requires your time, the time of medical office/hospital staff, time of insurance company staff, possible review board staff time, cost of all the above for appeals when needed.
I must note here that there is a lot of information that you can find via google search to show that often much of this ‘data management’ is handled by companies in other countries. Outsourcing does have a place in the Insurance industry. Maybe a public option would make a requirement that there would be no outsourcing of those functions thus creating more jobs at the same time you expand health care coverage. This really got my paranoid side going. Sure we are told that our files are confidential, but what level of control is really exerted where that data is being sent overseas? Do they have the same or higher levels of security? Can people ‘buy’ the information from them when it would not be allowed to be sold here? A lot of things are possible in today’s world. I do hope that a Public Option for health care is one that becomes real.
