When I was an intern at Johns Hopkins Hospital in the 1970s, I was
very impressed by the caliber of patients on the wards. There would be
presidents and CEOs of large corporations, as well as queens and crown
princes of various countries, many of whom were dying of horrible
diseases and all of whom would be quite willing to give all their wealth
and titles for a clean bill of health.
It was easy to understand
that there is not much in life that is worthwhile without your health.
It is by far our most important possession, which we should jealously
protect. For this reason, I heartily agree that we as a nation need to
focus significant emphasis and resources on providing good health care
for all of our citizens. My question is this: Can we provide this
without turning over control of our most important possession to the
government? Some will say we have already relinquished it, so why talk
about it any further? Others say only the poor are affected by
Obamacare, and everything remains the same for all the others. Of
course, this is not true, since the many regulations associated with the
health care law affect everyone. Also, the economic impact does not
occur in isolation.
Rather than complain about Obamacare, it might
be useful to begin to discuss some enhancements or future alterations
that can make it work effectively or provide an alternative if it fails.
The first question is, what do you need for good health care in
America? You need a patient, a health care provider and a mechanism of
payment. Along came a middleman — namely, the government and the
insurance companies — to facilitate the relationship. Now the middleman
has become the primary entity, with the health care provider and the
patient at its beck and call. The whole enterprise has been turned
upside down.
In order to right the ship, we need to return the
responsibility for good health care to the patient and the health care
provider. One of the best ways to do this is through health savings
accounts, which patients can control. Even if the federal government
provided such an account for every American citizen that was increased
by $2,000 each year, it would cost less than $700 billion a year and
everyone would be covered. Keep in mind the fact that more than 150
million Americans are employed and their $2,000 per year in most cases
would be happily supplied by the employer if that was their only health
care obligation. This would make employers much more likely to want to
expand their businesses and hire more people, and it would decrease the
government’s entitlement obligations by hundreds of billions of dollars
per year.
(Click link below to read more)
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About Me

- Judy Chaffee
- This site is the inspiration of a former reporter/photographer for one of New England's largest daily newspapers and for various magazines. The intent is to direct readers to interesting political articles, and we urge you to visit the source sites. Any comments may be noted on site or directed to KarisChaf at gmail.

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
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