I'm watching Shepard Smith on Fox News, and I'm screaming at the TV because he so misses the point regarding so-called "healthcare reform" or "health insurance reform" or whatever they're calling it now.
He was berating his guest (a Senator ... I forgot who exactly) over his opposition to a "public option" because he claimed health insurance profits had gone up over 300% in the past few years.
Here's a clue, Shep ... health insurance company profits are a big fat red herring. If taking away corporate profits would fix things, then explain to me why
Medicare and Medicaid are chronically insolvent. The .gov and/or contractors who administer the benefits for these plans aren't making heaps of money off the programs ... so why aren't they flush with cash, pray tell?
The answer is multifaceted. First, Medicare and Medicaid are
entitlement programs. Their beneficiaries have very little - if any - point-of-service financial obligation for the services they receive. Therefore, they have little - if any - incentive to be conservative or conscientious with regards to how they utilize healthcare services. They are consistently inefficient (and, in my experience - irresponsible) consumers of healthcare. Beneficiaries of a "public option" would be in a similar situation ... they'd be financially putting in far less than they would be taking out of the healthcare resource pool. There's no incentive for someone who pays very little for healthcare to ... well, to care for their own health when they're
entitled to the service. The discussions about "preventive care" are another red herring in that regard ... the health problems with which people present to their doctors aren't fixed by "patient teaching" or vaccines. I see this every day at the hospital where I work ... people come in and fill out their "inability to pay" form while they text on their cell phones, and then they go outside to smoke after they see the doctor (if they can wait that long). Don't get me started on how many of them are obese, or who test positive for controlled substances for which they don't have a prescription. It's chronic illnesses that are bleeding the system dry ... not corporate profits. Also, the claims that premiums keep going up, and that healthcare costs more than ever ... those claims are disingenuous.
Of course it's more expensive now ... we didn't have MRIs or CT scanners or soft-tissue and organ transplantation like we have now for what we paid 10 years ago. Now we can give a patient with a cardiac disrhythmia drugs that will
stop the heart and then the heart will restart on its own, most likely in the proper rhythm. We can keep the body alive long after the spirit has tried to wrest itself free. That kind of amazing technology
does not come free. People who gripe about the cost of drugs or healthcare have no clue what those companies go through to get FDA approval of their medication or technology ... much less what that costs. Nobody seems willing to admit that
you're getting what you're paying for. Claiming that "costs need to be contained" is like saying you should pay the same amount for a 2500 square foot brick home with a pool and 2-car garage and a 1000 square foot double-wide. It's that absurd.
The media in general dances around the point. A "government option" will be unsustainable, for reasons that are right in front of our faces. Adding a gargantuan entitlement program for Americans who are bending over backward to show how irresponsible we are is patently crazy... and the current administration is foaming at the mouth to do it.
