Problems I see with Promises of Universal Health Care

You know, it always amazes me the promises that politicians make when they are campaigning. I’ll sit there and think do they really think that anybody believes this garbage? I mean, much of it defies common sense. The only thing that really amazes me more than the fact that they seem to think we’re stupid enough to swallow their fairy tales is the number of people that do end up believing every word of it.

During campaigns of the past we’ve been told that everybody in the US was going to be provided with health coverage, no matter your health status. And where yes, where this was going to add billions of people who’s health cost would be added to the government burden, it wasn’t going to cost the average American anything. There would be no hike in taxes except on the top 1% and everything was just going to be great. Oh yeah, and although the service was FREE there would be no rationing. Sure it hasn’t ever worked that way for any other country but we’re going to be different.

Now, they are finally trying to push this “promised” bill through and we start seeing this for what it really is. We see that they are proposing two things.

First, every American will be forced to own Insurance or will be fined a large amount of money at the end of the year when you do your taxes. It really won’t matter if you only make $500 a week and your monthly bills run right at $2,000 a month. If you don’t get that $300-$800 a month insurance policy you will be fined several thousand at the end of the year. (I guess they did refrain from calling it a tax hike, but it sure sounds like one to me.)

The Second thing that we’re looking at is something that will be needed for Universal Health Care, although again I’ll remind you that we were promised it wouldn’t be needed. But somehow people believed the promise of no extra taxation. This was all going to be FREE. But they are saying that the only way this will supposedly work is extreme tax hikes for two years up front, before the system starts. Then within five years the goal is to have everybody on this system.
Now, as I mentioned in another earlier article, I’ve sold insurance before. Yes, it is true that I didn’t work in the corporate offices, but I would like to believe that I am aware of some things in the workings of insurance that some may not be aware of. These things are some of the reasons even beyond just common sense that tell me that Free Health Coverage even by the government without any extra taxes is just not going to be possible.

Let me tell you some cold hard facts. The cost of health care, notice I didn’t say Health Insurance, but health care costs go up right at about 20% a year on average. That is fact one. Fact two, even with the extremely high cost of health insurance, and the fact that they will only insure healthy individuals, they really only make a profit off of 3% of those premiums. Can you imagine how high the premiums would be if they took anybody, regardless of health?
But here is my point. The government is always talking about health care reform. Really all they want to reform is the insurance side of the matter which honestly is not where the problem is even at. Consider for a minute if the government decides to take control of providing your insurance needs. If profit is taken completely out of the picture, cost would only go down 3%, and that’s if the unhealthy were still not covered. When you figure them in it prices will go way higher than now. But even if that were not true, what about the fact that health care cost still goes up an average of 20% a year. That tells me that not only will there be a substantial tax hike starting two years before we get the benefits but the government is going to need to increase the money coming in to pay for these benefits at least about 20% a year.

In conclusion, there are things that could improve the cost of health care in America. But the problem is not on the insurance side of the issue. The problem is with the actual health care cost going up every year and this is being caused by trial lawyers who encourage people to sue providers for every imagined wrong. I can see going after a doctor for blatant malpractice, but when he/she is trying their best, but the result isn’t what is wanted, we need to remember that they are called doctor, not God.

Of course when lawmakers are asked to do something about this problem they refuse. Why, I don’t know. But I wouldn’t doubt that a look at where some of their campaign contributions come from might not give interesting results.
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