Rep. Schakowsky Speaks the Truth on Health Care

Although I don’t agree with Rep. Schakowsky on her ideas about health care, I do very much appreciate her honesty.  In the below video, she may be the first politician to speak the truth about the “public option” for health care.  The reality is that option will end private health care as we know it, and move the US to single payer health care without people realizing it:

Of course where I disagree with her is in her view that this will be a good thing for the country.  One only needs to look at the Post Office and Amtrak, both of which lose billions of dollars a year, to see what happens when the government tries to run things with the combination of union employees and a no-profit motive.  Based upon past experience with government programs, it just makes no sense to imagine that health care will become somehow more affordable and better with the government at the wheel.

The idea that insurance companies need more competition from the government seems a bit absurd.  Do we want the government competing with private industry to make sneakers, computers, or toothpaste –  do we think the government will make these items any higher quality or cheaper?  I really wish I could share Rep  Schakowsky’s view that the government will act an efficient, benevolent, non-profit and help everybody get cheaper health insurance – but the evidence is against her.

The way the government can really help is to change the rules of the game, not to become a player in the game.  If they really want to make a positive difference, here are a few things that might actually help:

• Get rid of the tax benefit for employers, and let employees write off premiums instead (employees cannot deduct health insurance costs currently from their taxes)
• Regulate health insurance nationally rather than state-by-state, like it is now
• Reform tort laws to impose reasonable limits for medical malpractice, instead of whatever the jury happens to decide
• Assist people who are too poor to buy health insurance, but too rich for government programs

The key issue for health insurance reform is the “45.7 million Americans without health care” that we usually hear about in the news.  If we look at this data more carefully, we see that:

• 18 million of these people make more than 50K per year
• 10 million make more than 75K per year
• 10 million are not US citizens
• 14 million qualify for government insurance, but have not bothered to sign up yet
• 70% of uninsured children qualify for Medicaid of SCHIP insurance, but have not signed up for it.

The people that need help the most are those who get caught in the middle, folks who make 20K – 50K a  year and cannot afford health insurance.  The government should focus on helping these people with vouchers so they can afford health insurance. Letting insurance companies compete better in every state will both lower prices and create better services.  Why should we subsidize health insurance for people who make more than 75K a year?

When the government enters the market with it’s own health care plan (which will inevitably lose billions of taxpayer dollars), it will also probably bankrupt the private insurance companies in the process.  The government will also lose the tax revenues from these profitable private companies.  We will end up with the government rationing health care, with no other choices in coverage.  Rep Schakowsky and her supporters think this is great step forward, I think it’s a step backward.  It will slow the progress of new medical discoveries if there is no money to be made from those discoveries.