I just finished listening to Meet the Press and a good portion of the hour was on health care reform.
My problem with the direction that Congress and the President is taking is that they are talking about compromise and secondarily about the ultimate cost.
I, as a voter, don’t care about compromise. I care about a program that works. To me, there should be a way to get health care from the government. It could be some sort of fall back program but it needs to be there as a safety net. Also, a government or one-payer program is likely to cause some sort of price competition amongst the retailers of health care insurance. As a buyer of such programs, they need something that can control costs. I’m not saying that a company shouldn’t make money but when a company can up rates by 40%, that isn’t right. Compromise isn’t going to get us something that works. What it’s likely to do is force Congress into trying some crazy program that is only supported by some crazy theory that has little or no evidence that it works.
I do care about the cost of a program like this but I’d like more thinking going into how this program can affect cost to the tax payer both directly and indirectly. If the above government or one payer program exists, it is likely to spurn competition in the health care insurers and lower cost indirectly through that competition. Also, if this government or one payer program exists, it’s likely to require some control over actual health care costs (such as prescriptions, doctor charges, hospital charges, …) and that would be a more direct cost benefit to me as a tax payer.
Ideology and partisanship is causing the elected officials to forget what they are responsible for and that is producing legislation that works and benefits the tax payer. Right now, I’m not confidant that we will see this instead we are likely to see something that doesn’t work and satisfies no one.