"1. Move away from employer-based care - Allow consumers to pay for their own policies with pre-tax income and let the insurance companies compete for their business."
Insurance companies can compete all they want, but they are not the ones driving up costs, mainly. Indirectly, insurance companies drive up costs by their sheer numbers, requiring doctors' offices to be familiar with all of their different forms and claims procedures. Currently, almost one-third of all U.S. health care costs are caused by wasteful administration. (Meanwhile, Medicare's adminstrative costs are 2% to 5%). More insurance companies competing would mean even more administrative overhead for doctors passed on to us patients. The rising cost of medical treatment is driving up the cost of health insurance, and only doctors can prescribe care (to which insurance companies can only say yes, no or not so much).
"2. Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines - Because of individual state regulations, companies cannot compete across state lines for business."
Ditto the above. Insurance companies are not the ones driving up the cost of care. They make money by limiting treatments, and limiting or denying payment for treatments (recission), while collecting as high as possible premiums. They are not ordering more MRIs, CT scans, and longer hospital stays to drive up costs -- just the opposite.
"3. Introduce tort reform - The fear of lawsuits causes malpractice insurance to be expensive, but it also has a much greater impact to costs in the form of defensive medicine. In order to protect themselves from a potential lawsuit, doctors order more tests and procedures than they would otherwise leading to wasteful care."
Tort reform sounds nice, but let's be clear: we're talking about limiting our 1st Amendment right to petition the courts for redress of grievances. We shouldn't infringe on this right willy-nilly. Only if it's helpful, right? Well, it probably wouldn't be helpful. Even after Texas amended its Constitution in 2003 to limit malpractice damages payouts, the cost of health care in Texas continued to skyrocket: from 2000-2007, the cost of the average family health insurance policy went from $6,638 to $12,403. Furthermore, a study by the University of Alabama of 27 states with caps on malpractice payouts concluded: "Tort reforms have not led to health care cost savings for consumers." Nevertheless, despite all evidence that tort reform won't work... let's do it anyway. Just to silence the critics so that we can move on to real reform when tort reform doesn't work.
"4. Focus insurance on catastrophic care - Nobody expects their car insurance to pay for the oil change, but we expect health insurance to pay for routine visits. Catastrophic care insurance would prevent people from being financially ruined in the event something serious goes wrong."
If you try to buy health insurance as an individual, the coverage offered already is designed for "catastrophic care." You've got to pay very high deductibles before anything is covered by the insurance company, or else you've got to make a very high monthly payment, plus co-insurance, and things like maternity are not covered or cover only a fraction of the real costs.
I encourage everybody to go to the non-partisan site healthinsurance.org and search anonymously for health insurance that equals or exceeds your employer-provided insurance, just to see how much it costs. You might be surprised.
"5. Take care of the truly needy - The federal government has no business providing health care programs, but we at the state and local level have an obligation to take care of our neighbor."
What difference does it make if it's the state, local, or federal gov't providing health care? What's this "no business" business? Aren't we all Americans? How come it takes a 9/11 or a Katrina to remind us of this? He's making a statement based on ideology, not economics or pragmatism. The federal gov't should provide health insurance to the needy because it is the best equipped to do so (economies of scale); and federal assistance ensures that people who find themselves in a poor or suddenly fiscally-challenged state do not get swept under the rug of neglect. Also, state-by-state coverage of the needy could have unintended consequences: if one state is more generous in its funding of health care for the poor, then poor people might flock to that state when they get sick, thereby overloading the system. States already have to cover 50% of Medicaid costs despite many states' insolvency due to the recession.
The general problem here is that the rhetorical fallback position of many conservatives -- "competition and free markets are the cures to all our ills" -- simply doesn't apply here, because consumers often don't know in advance when/if they will need medical care; and because doctors don't prescribe care on the basis of cost, but rather on their judgment of efficacy, as they are ethically obliged to do. The result is that somebody other than the consumer is deciding what needs to be bought, when, and how much. Add to this the fact that medical treatments are often complicated, sometimes even unique, and tailored to the individual, therefore it is almost impossible to comparison shop in advance, except for the most routine of procedures. Without clear pricing you can't have an efficient market; and the nature of medicine prohibits clear pricing. Therefore we can't have a health care market.
And so we rely on HMOs or insurance companies to be the "bad guys" who say "no," or "not so much!" However, because they are for-profit or at least financially interested, we don't really trust them to make those decisions (especially when they cancel our coverage when we get seriously ill). Government is the only answer: it is not financially interested or out for profit, so we can let gov't be the bad guy who says no to unnecessary tests or prolongation of ineffective treatment. The problem is that too many Americans trust federal bureaucrats even less than for-profit insurance companies, and that is sad. Other countries do trust their government with this role and by and large, they are satisfied.
Dear Fellow Citizens and Taxpayers,
According to WLWT Channel 5, the President had 4500 attend his speech on health care yesterday at Riverbend. Be proud of yourself because this means that our Voice of America Rally outdrew the President at a 4-1 ratio. The silent majority of hard working Americans has woken up and become engaged in the political process. This is unquestionably a great thing for our country.
I watched clips of the President's speech and he again pressed the need for reform of our health care system. I agree! Our system is clearly not perfect and there is plenty of room for improvement. Unfortunately, the President lied when he said that their plan of a new government option was the only one on the table. As usual, he plays politics by saying that those who oppose his plan benefit from the status quo and are captured by special interests.
There is a kernel of truth in his words. We don't have a detailed plan. There's a reason for that - we're busy working! We do this in our spare time and we don't have time to write a 1000 page (ours wouldn't be 1000 pages anyways) alternative to the disaster that is the current bill - HR 3200. We pay our representatives to do that.
What we can do is lay out a few principles that are critical for reform to be a success:
1. Move away from employer based care - Right now, if you don't like your insurance company, the only way you can switch is to change jobs. Consumers need a choice. Allow consumers to pay for their own policies with pre-tax income and let the insurance companies compete for our business.
2. Allow insurance companies to compete across state lines - Because of individual state regulations, companies cannot compete across state lines for business.
3. Introduce tort reform - The fear of lawsuits causes malpractice insurance to be expensive, but it also has a much greater impact to costs in the form of defensive medicine. In order to protect themselves from a potential lawsuit, doctors order more tests and procedures than they would otherwise leading to wasteful care.
4. Focus insurance on catastrophic care - Nobody expects their car insurance to pay for the oil change, but we expect health insurance to pay for routine visits. Catastrophic care insurance would prevent people from being financially ruined in the event something serious goes wrong.
5. Take care of the truly needy - The federal government has no business providing health care programs, but we at the state and local level have an obligation to take care of our neighbor.
Obama Protest Yesterday
Nearly 200 patriots showed up outside of Coney Island and Riverbend yesterday to protest against the public option and in favor of free markets. The reactions of passerbys was much more positive than I expected given the high concentration of union employees. What it proved to me is that the union leadership is out of touch with their rank and file.
Some even joined us for the protest! At one point, two people headed to the AFL/CIO picnic with their family let the family go inside and grabbed signs. Another group was headed to River Downs and decided to pull over and join us as well.
The media covered us well and listened to our pro-free market message.
More to come later - I have to get to work. The next email will include more details on the trip to DC later this week.
Sincerely,
Mike Wilson
Founder/President
Cincinnati Tea Party
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