Americans have always valued freedom of choice as an inalienable right. However, the health care reform Obama is proposing will actually limit our health care options. Universal health care sounds great in theory, but the way Obama plans to meet reform demands is questionable. The fine print of the new plan indicates restrictions in choice of your own plan as well as on rewards for healthy living. We are in desperate need of reform, but there are other ways to change the system that will preserve the rights of the people.
The government underscores the freedom to choose your own plan—with a catch. According to CNNMoney, the government will require that Americans purchase insurance through “qualified” plans, which include a mandatory list of benefits that each plan must have, including substance abuse services, mental health benefits and prescription drugs. This means, for example, that an individual with no substance abuse problems must still pay for care as a part of the plan. Not only is it unreasonable to force patients to pay more than necessary when one of the reasons for the new bill is to reduce costs, it is also inadequate to generalize plans to one-size-fits all, or in this case, a government packaged plan fits all strategy. Obama also promises that we will be able to keep our plans, but the fine print indicates that in some cases if we change our original plan in any way, we’ll have to resort to a “qualified”plan.
Americans will also no longer be rewarded for healthy living. The reform calls for community rating in which all patients pay the same rates regardless of age or current health. This means that younger people, who usually have lower incomes and fewer health requirements than older citizens, have to pay the same rates. This is unfair because it puts a certain group, in this case, the younger generation, at the butt of the deal, and will have to pay a price disproportionate to their conditions.
In a Gallup poll published on Aug. 12 this year, 49 percent of Americans say that they disapprove of Obama’s handling of health care policy, while a lower 43 percent say they approve. Americans clearly want health care reform and have pushed the government to make it a priority, but the results of this poll show that this particular plan is unsatisfactory. In a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey in March, more than 80 percent of Americans said they were content with the quality of health care they received, but satisfaction with the cost was 52 percent. This shows that there is not as much wrong with the quality as there is with cost.
One word sums up how to reduce costs without reduced quality—competition. A study by the American Medical Association revealed that a single insurer held more than half of the market in 56 percent of America’s 314 urban areas at the time. Because the insurer has a monopoly in these populous areas, they have more leeway to demand higher prices from their customers. An article in CNNMoney provides some ideas for ways out of the fracas. By expanding the health care market and stirring up some competition between insurers, insurers would lower prices to attract consumers, and health care would eventually become more affordable. This idea is great not only because it will maintain the quality of health care and drastically reduce prices, but also because insurance companies will no longer place power in the hands of private companies but in the power of the people, furthering our American ideal of power to the individual.
Not only is it an issue that some people lack health care, it’s also a problem that Americans pay drastically different prices for the same treatment. A healthy 30 year old pays $960 a year in Kentucky for full coverage in sharp contrast with the $5860 paid in New Jersey. By allowing insurers to advertise and sell policies beyond their states’ borders, the cost of health care will homogenize among the states so all Americans pay the same price for the same coverage—it’s only fair. It’s time for the country to overcome state borders and bridge the gap of health care costs at the cost of insurance companies.
We should focus on tweaking the infrastructure of the current system. Reform has to be undertaken without the sacrifice of our freedoms.
You have to realize something: The goal of all insurance companies is to make money, not to provide good healthcare, not to keep americans healthy, not to promote health, but to take peoples cash and give as little as possible back. Therefore anyone who does not have money or already has a medical problem is a bad apple for the insurance companies and that person cannot get medical insurance.
There was never any "reward for healthy living," only a penalty for being sick or poor: no health insurance, ei. huge medical bills and eventually bankruptcy.
A government plan is needed to cover all these bad apples (about 40 million americans) because no insurance company will cover them.
We will always pay for unneeded mandatory benefits. In the 50s we paid for them through taxes by funding insane asylums, now we pay for them through the prison system (a serious issue in CA right now) and insane people simply end up in jail. I think its way more responsible to pay upfront through insurance rather than after the fact through taxes, but take your pick.
Also, once all us 20 year olds grow up to be 60 year olds, we will be glad that we are still paying the same insurance rates and not a million times more. Unless your planning to die early, it will all even out in the end.
I agree with you that competition will help keep costs down, that is why an added government option is the right idea. And lets be serious, this plan is just tweaking the infrastructure, just enough to make a terrible thing a bit better. Our freedoms are not being sacrificed, just a little bit of our abundant cash flow to help those who don't have as much.