First off, I want to say that there are serious problems in Health Care today. Anyone who disagrees is not paying attention. That said, Obama is pushing for a horrible Public Option. Why is a public option horrible? Because it threatens Health Care as we know it. What will happen is that when a public option is made available, employers will have an outlet to not offer health care and thus people will be pushed to this public option. Once most people are on the public option, innovation shuts down as the government will makes fees so low that innovation is shot out of the system. The problem is that Democrats keep saying the “Health care is a right.” You know what, they are right, health care is a right. People are entitled to basic medicine regardless of their ability to pay for that medicine. But what they get wrong is that it is right for people to make money in medicine.
What needs to be done is opening up the markets and people should be forced to buy healthcare much like they are forced to buy car insurance. Those who cannot pay should be covered by the Government, as there are today in Medicare. If you let the actuaries get in there and set rates, people will be able to find an affordable plan that gets cheaper with healthy practices. The solution to the problem of this marriage between the employer and HMOs is not to find a new partner in the government. What needs to be done is a divorce between the employer and health care and that health care cost should fall to the individual directly. If the employer still wants to provide health care as a benefit, fine, but this unholy alliance being required needs to end.
