What's Up With This Health Care Thing Anyway?

Health care.

I feel like this must be the single-most confusing issue in politics today. First of all, what does “universal health care” actually mean? It sounds like everyone has to be covered since it’s universal. Secondly, what would this universal health care system actually cover? As someone in the process of applying for independent health insurance (which is no walk in the park let me tell you), I can barely figure out what’s going to be covered under the plan I just applied for! With terms like “high-deductible”, “coinsurance percentage”, “copay”, “professional fees”, “lifetime maximum”, and “outpatient lab fees” is it any surprise that a well-educated, fairly smart (okay, maybe I’m flattering myself with that one) person can’t even figure out how much she’ll have to pay when she goes to the doctor?

To shed a very small amount of light on the issue, here are some Wikipedia definitions for you:

Universal health care: Health care coverage for all eligible residents of a political region and often covers medical, dental and mental health care. These programs vary in their structure and funding mechanisms. Typically, most costs are met via a single-payer health care system or national health insurance, or else by compulsory regulated pluralist insurance (public, private or mutual) meeting certain regulated standards. Universal health care is implemented in all but one of the wealthy, industrialized countries, with the one exception being the United States. It is also provided in many developing countries and is the trend worldwide.

Single-payer health care system: Is a term used in the United States to describe the payment of doctors, hospitals, and other health care providers from a single fund. It differs from typical private health insurance where, through pricing and other measures taken by the insurer, the level of risks carried by multiple insurance pools as well as the coverage can vary and the pricing has to be varied according to the contribution of risk added to the pool.

Now, I may be going out on a limb here, but I don’t think anyone would argue that having a public option would be a bad thing. It’s just another option in the big pool of competition out there. Last time I checked, most Americans were down with the free market economy. If the government wants to play too, let them. Heck, if they could make as much money off of us as most insurance companies do (during their last fiscal year United Health Group showed Net Income of $3 billion, Aetna Inc. had Net Income of $1.4 billion, eHealth Inc. showed Net Income of $14.2 million, and Humana Inc. with Net Income of $647.2 million) we definitely wouldn’t be quite so in debt to China. At the very least, you have to admit that those net income numbers really don’t make it look like we’re in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression.

But I digress. There’s competition and plenty of money to be made in the health insurance industry which is something that it seems all Americans can get behind, since we’re already behind it, in the system we have.

The real problem is that the government wants to provide an affordable option (heaven forbid), and nobody can agree on how to pay for it. One solution is to tax the highest wage earners. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe this is people/couples who make over $350,000 a year. Frankly, and I know a few of you will have a heart attack at me for saying so, but I certainly feel like they can afford it. Another proposed solution is to tax health benefits that Americans receive from their employers. This one made me cringe at first too, but I’m not sure it’s actually as bad as it sounds.

In theory, because health care isn’t taxed, it’s effectively on sale and because of that people will tend to buy more than what they need. Because of the excess of money spent on health insurance, no effort is made on the part of the insurance companies to control costs or root out inefficiencies or waste. Oddly enough, it seems that liberals and conservatives all agree that this option would be the most effective to pay for a government health care option. But, you better believe that it’ll be a whole lot harder to be re-elected with a tax hike on health care on their record.

John Kerry (we all remember him, right?), the Democratic Senator from Massachusetts has proposed a health care tax that puts the burden directly on the insurance companies. While it’s questionable that the proposal would actual cover the cost of the plan, I kind of like the idea of sticking it to the insurers. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/29/business/economy/29leonhardt.html

Of course, let’s not forget that although many ideas, proposals and even bills are floating around both the House and the Senate, nothing has formally passed either part of Congress, and saying that you are either for or against the universal health care plan is a little premature since there technically isn't one quite yet.