Recently, Harry Reid, said “We must work past medical insurance, to a one payer system.”
Well I agree with him, (for once). But my one payer system is this – individuals responsible for their own healthcare.
We need to get back to pay for your services healthcare. We need to have the third party control over our healthcare removed. This includes the government, insurance companies and employers.
With all of these out of the way, the cost of healthcare will be subject to the marketplace, and this will allow healthcare costs to drop. This is because the individual consumer of healthcare will now be courted by healthcare providers. And we all know, if a business wants to attract customers, they offer a better quality product at better prices than competitors. Costs go down and better quality services and products result.
The disconnect between patient and medical cost is what has allowed those costs to soar far beyond the pocketbook of most people. The evolution to a system of third party payers created a situation where developers do not need to concern themselves with a product that will serve many. They can go out and create all sorts of expensive abstract medical equipment without having to worry about whether there is a need. All that research and development is expensive, and since there isn’t a consumer for the pie in the sky products, the cost is spread over all the other products the company offers. I am not bashing big industry here. It is reasonable that they must cover their costs in some way. However, in a free marketplace where they need to focus on lowering costs to attract users to their products, they will more likely choose an item that will have more usefulness.
Those of you who read history, might recall that there was a time when an injury or illness that required a doctor might include bartering for the doctor’s services. Chickens, milk, corn, a quilt or even a return service would settle the bill. Well, you might say things are so much more expensive now; you can’t do that. But I am hearing of local physician groups offering outside of insurance, healthcare. Depending upon the area you live, the costs vary. Your costs could be $100/month for entire family. When you need the services of the doctor, you just call for an appointment. I have heard in some other areas, its $10/month for a person.
The logic is obvious to those who wish to see it. When the individual pays the doctor directly, she cuts out the insurance company, the employees of that insurance company, the costs of the building of the insurance company, the heating, air conditioning and lighting, the costs of the snazzy software to track the zillions of bits of medical information. We aren’t paying for the panel that will decide our fate nor the unnecessary tests that the insurance company usually requires.
You pay the doctor yourself; he pays his expenses, including staff and building maintenance. All the money, generally speaking, stays local. In the quiet privacy of the doctor’s office you and he/she decided what the best treatment plan is. No strangers need know your business. Also, I have heard about private hospitals. They are small, but they are able to offer far better services, more quickly and more attuned to the patient and for a far lower price than any insurance company can. Negotiations to pay larger bills are done by reasoning together with the provider. Not by the dictate of a piece of company policy that is immovable, and located six states away.
I also see networks across the nation of physicians and other healthcare practitioners, who offer discounts to a network of people who pay a small fee to be users on that network.
When a third party steps into the middle, they must make money too. So the costs go up. When the patient isn’t aware of the costs of a service, they don’t care how high the costs actually are as long as someone else is paying more than 77 percent of the bill (1990 statistic).
Think of it like grocery shopping. If you think that peanut butter is too expensive, you don’t buy it. When enough people don’t buy it, the company finds a way to make it less expensive. When people say it doesn’t taste good, the company refines the processing until the peanut butter becomes desirable. Then you have a good price and good quality. Consumers buy the product and the company grows and is able to employ more people. Everyone is happy.
It is the above that is, in a simplified way, what the Founder’s and Framers of this great country saw. These people were free to engage in commerce without the harassment of a government. I hear people say, well you gonna get the greedy big business types in there and they will take advantage of the people. It may be so that a few may get taken in, but a shady business is found out quickly and no one does business with them. Then they go out of business. A new small business person comes in to fill the gap and off we go again. It is the way of a free country. Free commerce is a beautiful thing. If you don’t like that Doctor or his nurse, you can go to another. Until you find one you do like and trust.
Don’t be fooled by the dreaming talk of the collectivist yappers. Government running everything, whether outright or by deep regulation, is a dangerous thing to a healthy community. It will strangle the very breath of the country, hampering commerce and creativity.
A free economic system is what our founders foresaw, not a guarantee of “fairness” in trade nor services. The created a system limiting federal power, leaving most authority at the state and local level – closer to the people.
I hear that man currently occupying the White House saying “they want to keep you from healthcare”. The truth is, the policy of government paying for your healthcare will lead to the morass of no care at all. If you are of a certain age you especially may be left behind. After that point you aren’t valuable enough to get healthcare. You are just a supplicant kneeling before the throne of your monarch and asking for help. But no help will come. This is easily seen by looking at the countries who have already embraced this nationalized healthcare.
Didn’t our Founder’s fight a war over such a thing? Are men to be ruled by the dictates of other men or are they to be free and equal citizens of a free nation?
We must be willing to take upon ourselves our own healthcare decisions and leave the third party types out of the middle. The Constitution is all right with me, every time.
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