It is hard to believe I could ever enjoy the blog of a baptist minister, but somehow it has happened with Real Live Preacher. Alhough, he isn’t your typical baptist pastor. He has been on my Google front page for a while now, and I’ve come to appreciate his writing. I’m sure there are quite a few things we will never see eye-to-eye on, but that doesn’t matter much I suppose. His most recent post about his family’s experiences with obtaining health insurance really drove home something I’ve been thinking about lately. You should read it, but in short, the point is that it is way too easy for someone who doesn’t fit the typical full-time employee w/ benefits mold to fall completely through the health insurance cracks gaping hole.
What with the whole presidential election thing going on, I thought I’d take a look at it. I was going to write something about the republican debates this week, and I may yet. But, there wasn’t any discussion at all about health care, except when Romney made clear that we should be making sure illegal aliens aren’t getting any. So I checked out some of the candidate’s websites to see what they had to say there.
Romney
Rather than relying on a one-size-fits-all, government-run system, we must recognize the importance of the role of the states in leading reform and the need for innovation in dealing with rising health care costs and the problem of the uninsured. By expanding and deregulating the private health insurance market, we can decrease costs and ensure that more Americans have access to affordable, portable, quality, private health insurance
See here.
The notion that deregulating private health insurance will ensure more Americans have access is just absurd. How many people have health insurance now only because of regulations requiring they be covered (rlp’s case points out a couple)? Markets are really great for a lot of things, but they are never going to put value on someone’s health. Unfortunately health care is one of those things where you can make some predictions about how much someone’s health care is going to cost, and there is just no financial reason to cover those people who are likely to cost more. If you look at the market as a whole, it is perhaps more economically efficient to not cover them. They are probably not producing as much for society as more healthy people anyway, so why spend the money. Let them die, it’s a net savings for the market. If we as a society are going to decide that we want universal health care (and we should!), we simply can’t make it a financial market. We may not be able to build the perfect system, but we can do better than an unregulated market. He goes on to say:
Stop The Free-Riders. Use some of the money currently spent on providing expensive “free care” for the uninsured at emergency rooms to instead help the truly needy buy private insurance.
Is he serious? Is he suggesting denying uninsured persons access to emergency room care? It’s on his website!
Giuliani
Health care is not even mentioned on his Issues page. Maybe it is somewhere else, but I don’t see it, or a search option. Found it! It is, apparently, one of the 12 commitments.
“America is at a crossroads when it comes to our health care. All Americans want to increase the quality, affordability and portability of health care. Most Republicans believe in free-market solutions to the challenges we face. I believe we can reduce costs and improve the quality of care by increasing competition. We can do it through tax cuts, not tax hikes. We can do it by empowering patients and their doctors, not government bureaucrats. That’s the American way to reform health care.” - Mayor Rudy Giuliani
This is basically more of the same. What I particularly like, is the suggestion that “We can do it through tax cuts…”. I’m not sure exactly how tax cuts are going to lead to improved health care. I mean, maybe he can improve health care despite lowering taxes, but I doubt that too.
Huckabee
Huckabee is almost progressive, next to his republican peers. I can’t quite figure this man out. On the one hand, he is an evolution denying, my faith is my life, christian crazy guy. On the other hand, he keeps saying half sensible things. A couple times in the debate I almost liked him. His health care “issue” page is not nearly so naive and light on details as the others.
- The health care system in this country is irrevocably broken, in part because it is only a “health care” system, not a “health” system.
- We don’t need universal health care mandated by federal edict.
- We do need to get serious about preventive health care.
- I advocate policies that will encourage the private sector to seek innovative ways to bring down costs.
- I value the states’ role as laboratories for new market-based approaches.
- When I’m President, Americans will have more control of their health care options, not less.
- As President, I will work with the private sector, Congress, health care providers, and other concerned parties to lead a complete overhaul of our health care system.
- Our health care system is making our businesses non-competitive in the global economy. It is time to recognize that jobs don’t need health care, people do, and move from employer-based to consumer-based health care.
…
It is time to recognize that jobs don’t need health insurance, people do, and to ease the burden on our businesses. Our employer-based system has outlived its usefulness, but the answer is a consumer-based system, not socialized medicine.
Clearly not a supporter of a government run health care, but he does recognize without any question that employer based health-care is not the right way. Seperating health care from the employer is, I think, a fundamental step to any new systems. It may well be that a private health care system, with some kind of federal support to consumers, could work. But, ultimately, I think the the federal government DOES need to guarantee universal health care, somehow.
McCain
McCain is the only republican candidate at the moment that I feel I could tolerate as president. As far as health care goes, he is again better than some, but doesn’t really say much of anything. Some bits from his health care issues page:
- While we reform the system and maintain quality, we can and must provide access to health care for all our citizens - whether temporarily or chronically uninsured, whether living in rural areas with limited services, or whether residing in inner cities where access to physicians is often limited.
- Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost less than the full credit can deposit remainder in expanded health savings accounts.
- Bringing costs under control is the only way to stop the erosion of affordable health insurance, save Medicare and Medicaid, protect private health benefits for retirees, and allow our companies to effectively compete around the world.
So, he does at least state explicitly that “we can and must provide access to health care for all our citizens”. Although, he makes it sound like this is the status quo that must be maintained while we reform to the new streamlined, really cost-effective, open market McCain system. What exactly that system is though, I don’t see. Yeah, sure, a tax credit for the cost of health insurance is great, but it just isn’t going to do it.
Republicans talk about the need to reform, but what they really mean is to make health care cheaper, and available to those who can pay for it, and those who aren’t (based on some previous condition) deemed a high risk. The fact is, if we want everybody to have access to health care, then the system simply can’t be run as a market trying to increase profit. It has to be run by an organization who can look past profit maximization. The problem will only get worse as science continues to explore genetics, and more and more health risks will become assessable earlier. This is why we have government, because some things need collective control. In a country as rich, and with as high a standard of living as the U.S., it is a travesty not to be able to provide health care to all of our citizens. This is just one of the reasons why I become more and more of a democrat every day.
In all fairness, this post should probably cover the leading democratic candidates as well. However, that is going to have to wait for another time.
