When all this is over, there will be a lot of people, or
should I say, a lot of people who have a public audience, who will be clamoring
for major changes to our medical care/health insurance system.
The most common change they will want is guaranteed medical
coverage with a government-run insurance plan, like Medicare is now for seniors.
What could possibly go wrong with that?
As noted in a previous article, private businesses have an
incentive to keep costs down, government does not. Our government is so far in debt, they have
given up even trying to pay it down.
They just pay the interest on the debt, and they borrow money to do
that. Who does that? You wouldn’t do that, but you give your money
to someone else who spends your money like that, and then you want him to do
more things where he will do more of the same?
And, of course, when they do that, everything costs more,
because paying interest is like burning your money, and the value of your money
decreases almost in proportion to that debt due to government-induced inflation.
But at least everybody is covered.
That sounds noble and caring, but it destroys personal
incentive and responsibility. A while
back, I was thinking about Bernie Sanders and his plan for free college. Hey, I don’t have to pay for it. Somebody else will. So I don’t have to work at all.
That’s what will happen nationwide. I don’t need to worry about getting a better
job, working harder, going back to school, the government will take care of
this for me. And when we say government,
we mean other people.
But if everybody has the mentality that other people will pay
for it, then who will do the work that pays for it? You can’t keep taxing the rich, because they’re
the ones who work 80 hours a week to start the business, to run the business,
who invest the money for that new project. After a point, they will say it’s just not
worth it.
I’ve seen it at work where people didn’t want to work
overtime, because they say the government takes all their money. We have a doctor shortage in our country
now. Why? I can’t speak for everyone, but if you want
people to spend that kind of time and money to go to school and then work those
kinds of hours when they get out, then let them make all the money they
can. But when the government runs the
insurance, that doesn’t happen, and doctors don’t think it’s worth it anymore.
Are there risks with private insurance? Of course, there are risks. Life has risks. They want to remove all risks in life and
have the government make it all nice.
It’s the risks that cause us to go back to school, to work
more hours, to try harder, to keep looking for work. Starting a business is risky.
There are basically two kinds of private medical insurance: individual
and group.
The best private insurance plans are group plans. Individual plans are more expensive, though
under Obamacare, a lot of people get subsidized insurance coverage. Which means, other people pay for it. Individual plans, actually all plans, cost
more, because the government told the insurance companies to cover a lot of
things they didn’t cover before. But
group plans will still give better coverage at a lower cost. But let the company and the customer decide
what they want covered. That will lower
the costs substantially.
Group plans are essentially the employer-based plans. Some people don’t like that, because people
lose their plans if they lose their jobs. As it is now, they can keep that plan for
about six months after they lose their jobs, if they pay the premium themselves,
which most people can’t do. They didn’t
realize how much the company was paying for it on their behalf.
I suggest that former employees of a company be allowed to
keep their group policy. Forever if need
be. What the insurance companies would have to do
is to offer scaled-down plans in addition to the company plan. Policy holders would be able to switch plans
as their ability to pay improved or worsened.
Being part of a group would still give them better rates than if they
had to buy it on their own.
But, but, but
Weren’t there still be people who might fall through the cracks?
This is where our country used to run on that old-fashioned
idea of people helping people. Our
country didn’t always have government programs to rescue people. This used to be done locally with hundreds of
organizations funded with voluntary contributions and usually volunteers, people
helping people.
Most of this was religion-based, and our politicians chose
to use government instead. I’m just
saying the cost of doing that outweighs the benefits. Enormously.
