I like Barak Obama ... I like his enthusiasm for change. He is dynamic and he's cool. He would make history by being the first black man elected as president. He can give a great speech and look very presidential. John McCain is your standard presidential type candidate that we've seen for the past 200 years. He's not young and, most of the time, not very dynamic.
However, I have to vote on the side of "ideas that will actually work." After taking a little time to read both Barak Obama's web site and John McCain's web site, I can say, without a doubt, that I believe McCain's ideas will work and Obama's won't.
The Obama plan creates a national health care system ... read it on his site. Is this really what we Americans want? When I was picking up a package at the post office last week, I looked around thinking ... This is an example of our government system ... long lines, dirty surroundings, lost packages, angry people/customers, snippy employees.
I couldn't help but imagine that this long line I stood in was somehow a foreshadowing of what government run health care would look like, too ... not that we would have run-down doc offices ... but somehow, turning the system over to the government doesn't say to me that it will bring on higher quality and better coverage ... that just isn't our government's track record. :)
I don't typically use the U.S. postal service ... I use Fed Ex. I don't mind paying slightly more for good reliable service, a clean environment, short lines and a friendly employee to help me get my package to its destination (oh ... and the package actually arrives ... that's a plus!). And ... what about that other great U.S. government agency that we all love ... the IRS. Have you ever had a problem with a return or a mistake made by the IRS and tried to get it fixed? If yes, then you know exactly what I mean. If not, you can't imagine what I'm talking about ... it is so bad to have an issue with the IRS ... so bad.
I digress ... back to health care ... After reading his site, I think that John McCain's ideas closely match mine. I think that it is time for health care cost reform ... not just insurance reform. We need to make health care more accessible to the public in cheaper forms. Let's be honest anyway ... our very expensive health care system doesn't really work as well as we pretend that it does. We don't get honest answers from our docs ... they tell us what we want to hear or what our insurance company wants them to say ... in other words, we often get care guidelines based on what the doc knows an insurance company will or will not pay for. Many of our docs are only allowed 2-3 minutes of face time in a visit.
The entire system needs to be more simple ... med schools need to train people on different levels. Not every health care provider that we see needs to be a full doc ... there must be a level of balance that would be more affordable and provide the care for non-life-threatening issues. I can imagine a "Target" or "Costco" of health care ... a big corporation that provides quality health care at a cheaper cost. Families could buy into a corporate health care package that provides basic care and autodrafts a small amount each month for each person covered. Competition between these companies would keep them clean, innovative and cost effective. They could offer an array of yearly blood-work and some type of physical (a checklist worked through with a non-doctor employee maybe ... like a workout on a treadmill, etc.) that gives you some guidelines of your current condition, cancer screenings ... and a printout of what you should be doing to improve your health.
Catastrophic care insurance could be offered in separate or attached policies. I think that this care could be offered with high deductibles where the deductible can be easily covered by the money in an HSA or by an employer as a benefit. This would reduce the cost of insurance coverage by increasing the premiums and allowing more specialization.
But just making health insurance cheaper will not cause everyone to suddenly rush out and purchase it. Buying health insurance for most people is an issue of responsibility ... not costs. How do we mandate "responsibility" in a population that is feeling more and more like all their problems are someone else's blame or that all their expenses can just be paid for by someone else with more money than they have ... a population that learns to "work the system" ... That's a tougher issue ...
From Obama's web site, it seems to me that a lot of Obama's plan is just "great sounding ideas" with no "how to" behind it. For example, his site states that he will reduce the costs of catastrophe illness to employees and employers (sounds like a great idea) but it doesn't say who will, in turn, pick up that cost ... because the cost doesn't just "poof" go away ... someone will still pay for it. If we don't have a say in paying for it, how do we know what kind of treatment will be available for us in a catastrophic case?
McCain plans to provide tax incentives for the Americans (like me) that buy their own medical insurance but don't currently have any tax benefit from it. The bias currently is tax benefits for employer supplied medical plans - not individual. (HSA has been a great plan for us, btw, and is a great tax benefit, too.)
Obama's plan sounds great ... health care for all ... lower out of pocket by $2500 per family for overall health care costs. I just don't believe that his ideas actually work and I don't even want to think about turning our health care over to Uncle Sam in favor of personal responsibility and individual choice. Ultimately, I think that the answer is figuring out ways to make responsible use of the health care system equate into more dollars in the individual's pocket. Right now, we are not a country that shops for or demands low cost, high efficiency health care.
1 comment:
very thoughtful post, martha. thanks for sharing!!!
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