Clinton’s health care proposal
Hillary Clinton’s new health care proposal has too much emphasis on “insurance” and not enough on “care”. It reads like it is a gift to the insurance industry, rather than a true benefit to the populace. The middle-man insurance companies will continue to raise their rates and care will become ever more expensive, only under Clinton’s plan they’ll have even less pressure to keep costs low: after all, the poor will get a tax credit to pay for any increase they mandate.
I’m particularly bothered by her comparison of health insurance to car insurance. One only needs car insurance if they choose to drive. Under her system, one would need health insurance if they choose to live. I’m fine with people choosing to die, but I do not think that is something in which the government should be involved.
Barack Obama’s plan seems better to me, although it still has too much emphasis on the insurance side of the business, with his National Health Insurance Exchange. His plan only requires coverage for children, which I am OK with because they are not in a position to make an informed choice themselves.
Under either system, if everyone receives better health care, then I suppose the ends may justify the means, but I’m not a fan of that type of logic.
Ultimately, I would prefer a universal single payer system, tax-payer funded, to streamline billing and service offerings, and to recognize we as a society believe that good health is a right and not merely a “race to the bottom” insurance model. This won’t magically make care less expensive, but it removes the highly costly middle-man, who has a huge incentive to keep costs high. And then perhaps we will see more focus on the cheaper “prevention and cure” and less on the indefinite “treatment”.