Health Care Plans

Well, last night I listened to one more endless lengthy long, drawn out argument discussion on the relative merits of the health care plans being touted by the two Democratic candidates for president. I’m not sure why these two feel the need to argue so passionately over plans which differ in such minor ways and which offer so little benefit to the people of this country. These plans consist of putting two slightly different shades of lipstick on a very ugly pig.

Deductibles. Copays. “Reasonable and customary.” Pre-existing.

If you don’t know what any of these terms mean it’s because you live in a country where health care is provided, rather than one where health insurance is the norm. The two terms get used interchangeably these days, but they are by no means the same thing and, in fact, they are in many ways in opposition.

Health care is the prevention and treatment of illness and injury.

Health insurance is where you pay money while you are not sick to not get health care when you are sick. Because you had to first pay the deductible, and you were without funds at the moment. Because the copay was more than you could afford right now. Because the specialist you needed to see charged more than the “reasonable and customary rate” as determined by the insurance company.

Health insurance is where you enter into a contract with a corporation that you will pay a monthly premium and they will then pay for the health care that you need. You keep your end of the contract and they frequently do not. Instead of demanding that they treat you as the customer that you are when that happens, you beg and plead with them to grant you some sort of largesse.

No country in the world spends more on the treatment of illness and injury and gets less for their money, and the reason is health insurance.

My father used to say, “Don’t piss in my ear and tell me it’s raining.”

Well right now we have Obama pissing in our one ear and Clinton in our other ear and they are chanting in unison, “Whoo hoo, it’s raining and I have a better umbrella.”

Both candidates say their plans offer universal health care and both candidates are lying because both plans address universal health insurance and not universal health care. Under both plans it will remain true that in this country you will not get health care unless you can pay for it, either in cash or by means of an insurance policy. An insurance policy, please note, which you were able to pay for so either way money rules.

Both plans offer subsidies to help pay for the cost of health insurance, but that money comes from the pockets of the taxpayers so I fail to see how that is helping the taxpayers. Both plans claim to have measures to reduce the cost of insurance, but the specifics are unclear and enforcement of market controls by government has always been suspect at best.

Neither plan makes the slightest attempt to reduce the actual cost of providing health care and, in fact, both plans increase that cost by increasing the degree of regulation with a resulting increase in administrative overhead at the medical provider level.

Both plans provide enormous reward to the insurance industry: more insurance plans sold, more health care denied, more profit.

Both plans are, at best, incremental changes to a failing system.

When Hyman G. Rickover was proposing to power submarines with nuclear reactors he ran into serious opposition from conventional thinkers. He called them “oxcart planners” because he said that if they had prevailed throughout history we would still be fighting land battles with armor-plated oxcarts instead of tanks. He didn’t just change the way the submarine service was powered, though, he changed its fundamental nature.

Diesel-electric submarines were not true submarines at all, but merely ships that could submerge for limited periods. A program known as GUPPY in the 60's and 70's extended underwater periods for small percentages at a huge expense, but they were still merely ships that could submerge for limited periods. Not until Rickover rammed the nuclear power plant down the throats of the "armored oxcart" crowd did we have a true submarine - a ship that was in its element submerged.

Incremental change yields, at best, small improvement at large cost. For fundamental difference one needs to implement fundamental change.

The way health care is managed in this country needs a Hyman Rickover. We need to rid ourselves of “oxcart planners” and engage in fundamental change. We need to eliminate health insurance from health care planning in America, and start taking care of our citizens instead of rewarding our corporations.