The health care debate has hit FaceBook. The last couple of days I have seen a number of people with their status set to, “No one should die because they don’t have healthcare. No one should go broke because they get sick.”
It’s a beautiful sentiment that I sympathize with. Obviously no one should die or go broke from a cause that is in any way related to health care. In fact, no one should ever die of anything but old age; not because of street crime, war, cancer, flood, or earthquake. Unfortunately, people do. The difference with the issues related to health care is that these causes of death, and of economic ruin, are preventable. If not completely preventable, they are at least issues we can significantly impact.
And so goes the health care debate. Health care needs to be reformed. I happen to believe that these reforms should look far different than what the typical reformer is demanding, but it needs to be reformed. There are ways to reform health care that are far better for the economic future of the nation than the Democratic proposals. I want to see reforms including, removing taxes, tort reform (not dumping the right to sue!), removing barriers including those that prevent buying policies from different states. I don’t get why these approaches are ignored anymore than I get why so many people refuse to recognize that some kind of reform is needed. I think that has a lot to do with the way reform is being presented.
I was going to be critical of the FaceBook campaign because on the surface, it seems like another in a long list of the shallow slogans used by both sides in the debate. However, I now see that the FaceBook campaign presents an opportunity to fix health care in America.
President Obama will give a speech this week to a joint session of Congress and the nation. He will use this speech to advance his health care agenda.
I wish President Obama would use the speech to re-start the health care discussion. The speech I would like to see the President make goes something like this:
“Folks, I have learned that there are two distinct views on health care. On one side we have people struggling to pay for medical care for themselves and their families. On the other side, we have people that recognize that the care they receive is the best in the world.
“To those of you that already have great health care, please understand that even with this system that is the best in the world, you could lose your coverage or be ruined financially if you get sick. That is the reality. The health care system is flawed. I know that we have an opportunity to improve health care in America for everybody, even those that are very happy with their current health care.
“I also understand that it was our blind obsession with having things, regardless of our ability to pay for those things, that caused the current economic mess. We can not let that same blind obsession destroy our health care.”
“I now understand that much of this improvement can best be achieved with less government not more, and that where government is needed, we need to make it a facilitator not a barrier. We need reforms that make economic sense, not reforms based on absolute best possible outcomes.
“So tonight, I want to start all over again. From the beginning. Can we do that? I pledge to lead a nationwide debate that recognizes all views and concerns. Can we forget about the past demands and angry town hall meetings and instead agree on a single starting point with absolutely no preconditions:
“No one should die because they don’t have healthcare. No one should go broke because they get sick.
“We will make progress on this goal because I will build a plan that includes the ideas and concerns of my opponents. I will show this nation that I have learned from our experiences this summer.
“Thank you and good night.”
{ 3 comments }
How about because they accomplish pretty much nothing. Tort reform (a state issue, not fed) hasn’t made any difference in insurance rates where it has been enacted. The cross-state-lines argument is mostly about getting insurance companies out from under any regulation at all (states can regulate them now). Not sure what taxes you’re talking about removing, but whatever ti is, you need to replace the revenue with some other tax.
If you want “no-body to die” from lack of health care, then everyone has to be covered, and you don’t get to charge old or sick people more than young and healthy people, but you do have to somehow pay for people that can’t afford $1000/month for insurance. So the rates are based on income and the “group” in group coverage becomes all of us. If you’re going to do that, you might as well have single payer.
I nominate Robert S. Siegel for president. Great speech.
you lost me at tort reform.
as FA Hayek said, we should look to competition for all things but sometimes competition just cannot provide the service or product that a society needs, and in those instances the government should absolutely step in.
If you don’t know who FA Hayek is, he was a Nobel Prize winning economist who is probably considered by most to be one of the modern founders of libertarianism. The point is, even guys like this knew that there are times that ‘the market’ just can’t deliver what the people want.