Monday, June 08, 2009

Sixteen years ago the health care industry represented roughly 1/7 th of the economy, now that number has grown to about 1/5 th or 20%. At that time a newly elected President assigned the task of reforming our health care system to the First Lady of the United States Hillary Clinton. "Hillary Care" as it came to be known was a plan drawn up in secret by a large group of experts that would modernize our health care system and guarantee coverage to every American if implemented. It was a campaign promise President Clinton had made, and one he would come to regret. A series of advertisements staring fictitious characters Harry and Louise rode rough shot over the airwaves in a campaign to put Hillary Care to bed forever, and it was so effective that it never made it to a vote in either house of congress. Americans were not ready then to give up their free will and freedom of choice when it came to their relationship with their doctor.

We find ourselves with a new President a decade and a half later having made a similar campaign promise, and who upon entering office claimed to have found himself inheriting the worst economy since the "Great Depression" and who along with majorities of his own party in both houses of congress stacked up nearly a trillion dollars in deficit spending in "economic recovery" and putting for a budget that spread red ink as far as the eye can see and the mind could imagine over the next decade (more than 13 trillion dollars) now wants to stack a health care bill, one that would represent the largest single spending bill in US History and a mandate to the States that would burden them in a fiscally impossible manner with no redress.

Harry and Louise are a bit too old to dust off and bring back, even though their message is as relevant today as it was then. The printing presses at the Treasury Department are going to collapse from the stress they are receiving. What's even more significant is the risk of inflation and high interest rates that certainly loom just over the horizon if we continue down this path. While reforms are without question necessary, and have been talked about for many years; there is no reasonable reason to toss the baby out with the bath water and reinvent the wheel.

Health Care as it is now is almost universal. The cost now pretty much reflects just how universal it has become. The price of treating the uninsured is reflected in the price charged by hospitals, clinics, and doctors offices every day. Generally speaking no one gets turned away in this country for health care. If they do, it's their own fault for now asking for help. Anyone that shows up at a Hospital Emergency Room gets seen regardless of their financial wear withal to pay. There are many free or almost free clinics in most cities. Every county in the has its own health department and offers some services to the poor. Medicaid is available to the destitute. Medicare is available to the aged and disabled. We are managing albeit at a high price.

The real problems that drive up the cost of health care are the hot button issues politicians will not touch because the lobbies put too much money in their pockets and make huge donations to their parties. The could make a start with Tort Reform (Medical Malpractice) legislation and then move on to allowing small businesses to band together to form regional alliances that produce purchasing power similar to large corporations or the Federal Government. They can work with the States to devise a standard formulary so that prescription drugs in one state can be sold for the same price in every other state. They could revise medical record keeping requirements so the cost of having a patient doesn't overwhelm the profit to a doctor.


Our health care system is the envy of the world. People travel here from all over the world to be treated for their ailments, to have surgeries that are not available or not going to be able to be scheduled for them for months or years in their own country. People gladly pay whatever it takes to have an American doctor and be treated in an American hospital. If we destroy our system by conforming with what is offered and where with they go to get good medicine? Where will the breakthroughs come from? Who will aspire to become a doctor, or to specialist in a difficult field? When the government becomes the payer of last resort it becomes the only payer because no one will want to pay more than is necessary to health care benefits. When the government becomes the only payer they sit in control of who receives what procedure and who does not. The government decides whose life is worth saving based on cost, not on medicine. What has the government ever done that they have done well?


These are real reforms that matter in significant ways that produce significant benefits in terms of cost savings. They take significant intestinal fortitude to pass. It's time for Congress to do its job and stop spending our money when they can save us some.