Why “Affordable” Health Care Is, And Will Continue To Be, So Expensive For Us All
Sandra Fluke is one more reason why we, in America, need more affordable, and better quality, private health insurance, rather than what she, and many others, are advocating, which is public health insurance provided/mandated through a government system which monopolies the industry. Monopolies, by their structure and their very nature, do not create incentives to better or improve upon anything. Rather, they allow the few people at the top running the show to set the prices, which always goes up, and to disregard the quality, which inevitably goes down over time. It also allows for greater corruption and abuse within the system as well as collusion to keep prices higher than they would be under a private system where competition was allowed to flourish. Without competition, no ideas are offered, no alternatives are expressed, no solutions to current problems are brainstormed. Why would this not also be true of a government monopoly on health care?
Sandra Fluke welcomes government stepping in and providing her, and everyone else, with health care. But at what cost? In other words, whether that cost of health care is low, or “at no cost”, the idea that it is actually free is deceiving. The case in point is Obamacare, which will force all Americans, and all businesses in America, to buy health care insurance exclusively through the federal government or face steep fines, the amount of which only the 1% can afford to pay. As damnable as Obamacare is, and as unconstitutional as it is, it would be far more advantageous and beneficial if it was a replacement to Medicare and Medicaid rather than and addition to an already overburdened over stretched health care system the debt and liability of which is scores of trillions of dollars and growing (out of control) at a substantial rate. And with Obamacare, what is the point of Medicare and Medicaid?
This all begs the question – what does anyone have against private health insurance? If you answer, “because I cannot afford private health insurance”, then the next logical question is – why? In other words, what is causing/driving the cost of private health insurance to stagnate in a price range, it is assumed, is higher than most Americans can afford to purchase? And, for which is why so many millions of Americans support Obamacare, or the idea of some form of government provided, “low-cost” health care insurance that is neither low nor is it the best alternative? If anything, Obamacare, any type of government provided health insurance acts in the same way a comfort food does. It satisfies us, but is not really good for us, and ends up costing us down the road in ways we either did not anticipate or want to anticipate. But the consequences are there, and they will need to be reckoned with.
As for the so-called “benefits” to small business? The only reason for that is because health care is so expensive small businesses, by virtue of having a limited cash flow to work with, cannot provide most or all of their employees with health insurance, or with the types of insurance coverage big business can afford to contract with insurance providers. Therefore, small businesses are left at a disadvantage. However, with affordable, private insurance, that issue is eliminated. That won’t happen until government gets out of the health care insurance business. That won’t happen until more Americans become more informed about the advantages to private health care insurance versus the horrors of government-run/mandated heath insurance. None of that will happen until we change the leadership in Washington. That will, hopefully, happen in November.
Sandra Fluke has a personal agenda she is setting forth and laying out. Namely she desires all women have access to health care, including contraception and abortion coverage, and she supports the “Affordable Care Act” which is the initiative that, through government health insurance, would provide her and all women with what she wants. There are two problems with this that someone as “emotional” as Sandra Fluke is – as opposed to rational – is missing.
First, it is not “affordable”. Either every American taxpayer is going to see their taxes go up substantially in order to pay for this, or the cost will be tacked onto the trillions of debt we currently owe. If the latter, then we will see higher inflation, and for a longer period of time, because in order to pay off just the interest on that debt, prices on everything will need to rise. Government can, and does, create money simply by printing it. And in order to pay for Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, and all government health care run programs, government will need to continue printing money. All that ever does is devalue the worth of money which leads to higher and higher inflation, which leads to higher and higher costs on everything, including health care itself. But also everything else we buy and need to buy, like food and gas. So the idea that the “Affordable Care Act’ is “affordable” is ludicrous. Women may be benefited, perhaps, but as monopolies go, there is no guarantee. And as monopolies go, that benefit usually declines over time. And while women are “benefiting” from “affordable” health care, they, along with the rest of us, are paying more for everything we buy in order to pay the cost of their “affordable” health care.
Secondly, if we actually devoted more time to debating the usefulness and advantages of private health insurance, it would do more to lessen and allay the negative stigma and fears so many Americans have about it. It would also help to inform those people who are against it – because of its high cost – why more private health insurance will bring down that cost to levels that are real, rather than artificially, affordable, and why private health insurance promotes better and higher quality health care than government could ever do. With private health insurance – and that means, for those who are unsure, health care we pay for ourselves and our family out of our own pocket, not our neighbors or fellow taxpayers – health insurance providers are forced (whether they want to or not) through competition to provide the people they insure with the best, the highest quality and most affordable health care they can offer, or risk losing their clients to another private health provider. Is that hard to comprehend?
With private health insurance, there is no room for error. Conversely, with public, government-funded health insurance, there is all kinds of room for error, and no incentive to correct any mistakes because the money being paid for health insurance, for the contracts, the salaries, the bonuses, of everyone involved in a government-run health care system, etc., will always be there, whether it is coming from the taxpayers or being printed out of thin air, to keep the system running. That does not work in the private industry. Hence, the money is real, it is worth something to the insurance providers, and worth more to them than money that is created artificially, and thus is worth the time, effort and energy to keep finding solutions to health related problems, finding better ways to provide health care and finding ways to keep the costs down and as low as possible. Private health insurance encourages its providers to be and remain honest. Government run heath care only encourages corruption.
Sandra Fluke, because of her advocacy for the “Affordable Care Act” is actually harming women more than she is helping them, and she is actually putting women’s health more in harm way, more at risk, than otherwise. Whatever the “Affordable Care Act” will ultimately provide and cover will pale in comparison to what could be provided and covered through private health insurance. Breast exams, cervical cancer exams, pap smears, colorectal exams, childbirth and all health issues related to women could be much cheaper, much less expensive, much more expansive in their service and quality, if private health insurers were better able to compete for new clients. So long as the government has a monopoly, and a mandate on health insurance, that will not happen.
But if all Sandra is really seeking in the “Affordable Care Act is free contraception (for whatever purpose) and abortion coverage, which may or may not be covered by private insurance – and, in the case of abortion, may not be legal for any health insurer to provide depending on its reason – then she probably does not care about the overall harm she is going to cause to woman down the road, or to all American. Nor would she care about the cost, the burden of that cost, the effects of that cost on everyone, or how that cost is going to have to be repaid.
Sandra may be too emotional to want to listen to rationality and reality. What about the rest of us?
Related articles
- Whitehouse, Women and the Affordable Care Act (goodolewoody.wordpress.com)
- Supreme Court Prepares to Tackle Affordable Care Act (news.health.com)
- Here’s A Quick Way To Understand What Is Happening To The PPACA Next Week (theinsurancebarn.wordpress.com)
- More good news about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare): CBO says it will save money (timpanogos.wordpress.com)
- Breaking it Down: The Health Care Law and Cost Control (nvrdc.wordpress.com)
