Greetings Comrades!
Kip Ward
Posted: 09.10.2009 / 5:26 PM PDT
A big topic around here is health care, and I can’t think of a bigger mess. My monthly health insurance premium is almost eleven hundred dollars and that is just for my wife and I. You might think that we must be old and sick to have to pay that much but the truth is not what you might expect. My wife is in her forties and I’m in my mid fifties, plus we are both healthy.
I could not afford to get health insurance until I passed the mid-century mark and even now I am unlikely to be able to keep it. It is a huge expense and I believe that if I were ever to have a substantial claim that my insurance company would work to deny it. And even if they did pay it I would likely drown in the co-pays and deductibles. After all, most people who file for medical bankruptcy have health insurance.
I can’t debate the pros and cons of all of the different ideas of health care reforms, but I can share with you a small town perspective of health care.
Our employer base is small business. Now when we talk about small business around here, we mean small; not the 100 to 1,500 employees as defined as a small business by the federal government but really small, like two to five employees.
Most of the small business owners can’t afford health insurance for themselves and can barely eke out the ten or so dollars an hour they have to pay their help. No money, no health insurance benefits. It is pretty cut and dried, if health insurance were mandated for employers most of these businesses would have to close their doors. So much for the American Dream.
In Lincoln City, most people’s health care plan is to simply hope that they don’t get sick. That’s it.
I don’t have any solutions but I wonder sometimes why we have to have insurance at all? The insurance companies produce absolutely nothing but collect billions in profits. It is like having to go through a bookie or a casino to get our healthcare. How crazy is that? At least if we went through a casino they would actually pay off if you hit a jackpot.
I keep hearing that all America needs health insurance. I disagree. What Americans truly need is access to health care. I guess that the reason that we frame the discussion in insurance coverage rather than health care is the bazillions of dollars that the insurance companies pay to our elected officials. Understandably, the insurance companies’ solution is to pass legislation that mandates that everyone has to have health insurance coverage that is purchased from the insurance companies. Sweet! Who says money can’t buy you love.
Next imagine the savings if we were to legislatively eliminate or severely limit mal-practice lawsuits. No more huge awards, giant malpractice insurance payments, or excessive medical tests just to cover the doctor’s butts from the biting attorneys.
While we are at it I would be happy to take private enterprise completely out of the picture and that includes the administration of health care. What does it say about us that we have to make a profit off of human illness and suffering? The wealthy can still have their private hospitals. For the rest of us just access to basic care would be wonderful.
In the late fifties President Eisenhower built our interstate highway system. Some of us cruise it in a Cadillac and others in a Chevy, but we all have access to the basic system. It would be nice if our health care system worked the same way.
