My Take On Obamacare: Part 1

I’m not so quick to buy into throwing out the status quo just because it’s the status quo. Nothing is perfect, I’ll give you that, and we do need to change the healthcare system. However, I don’t think that allowing the federal government to both regulate the private system and become (more of) a market participant is the best long-run solution. I simply don’t agree with allowing the federal government to sit back and watch during good times and then intervene when things go bad. I believe the free markets should actually be free of regulation and bad ideas allowed to fail.

As I understand it, there are two noble goals proposed by the new healthcare bill:

  1. Expand healthcare coverage to more American citizens; and
  2. Reduce the cost of healthcare to those Americans. (Correction: I intended to say that the goal is to reduce the cost of healthcare for all Americans.)

Other changes will include more government regulation of the private market to prevent the private insurance companies from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. I assume the companies will be allowed to have some flexibility in setting higher premiums for high-risk individuals, otherwise I don’t see how this is a winning idea.

There will also be a “public option” in which the government will become a player in the market by offering a low-cost healthcare alternative to the private offerings. This is absurd to me, especially when combined with the above increased regulation. Not only will the government have control over its competitors, but the government will be in the game too. (Not that it isn’t already.)

So far this all sounds like a petri dish for corruption and increased debt.

I heard yesterday that eighty-three percent of people are happy with their healthcare and that sixty percent receive healthcare from their employer. Those two statistics, crude and unsubstantiated even, give me a whiff of why there is resistance across the board to the healthcare bill. Why change something decent and certain for something questionable and uncertain?

A principal by which I live is to question whether the band wagon is drivable before jumping on. The noble goals set out above would indeed make the United States a better and stronger nation, however I am not sold on the means of achieving them.

In the meantime, I’ll be eating well and exercising to decrease my chance of needing healthcare for a preventable self-induced condition. You should be, too.

Published by

Chris

Attorney & Amateur Golfer

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.