Healthcare Reform 101 for Democrats, Health Insurers and Main Street

Health insurance companies, noting the evolution of Sen. Max Baucus’(D-Mo.) Senate Finance Committee Healthcare bill (America’s Healthy Future Act), have mounted a campaign to stymie additional government intrusion into the marketplace. America’s Health Insurance Plans commissioned an analysis prepared by Price Waterhouse. PW found exactly what I’ve repeatedly stated in this column: “It simply taxes those who have health coverage and uses the money to give care to others.” The administration responded, but the response comes up short because the actual bill isn't finished.

The White House Health Reform Office delivered a counterpunch, releasing a statement about the AHIP analysis: “It is hard to take it seriously. The analysis completely ignores critical policies will lower costs for those who have insurance, expand coverage and provide affordable health insurance options to millions of Americans who are priced out of today's health insurance market or are locked out by unfair insurance company practices."  The White House Blog posted an “extended reality check,” addressing items in the analysis.

Fact is The White House and AHIP are a little ahead of the game. We’re dealing with the “conceptual language” made famous by Baucus. We can have no idea of the actual legislation until we see the bill and we’ll be lucky to see it 24 hours before it’s passed. Seems the Democrats believe the legalese is way above the average American. And obviously it’s way above abilities of members of the Finance committee too. In conceptual language, the Senate Finance Committee doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing.

Another fact—as government increases intrusion on your healthcare, the day will come when you will follow mandates set by the latest healthcare trend or study and if you don’t, penalties as yet undetermined will ensue. Right now the bureaucrats only target smokers and “fat” people. Tomorrow they may target prescription drug abusers, habitual traffic offenders, street drug abusers and anyone else committing a sin. Will the day come when sexual promiscuity is targeted? Who knows? With this administration, the sky appears to be the limit. I could make a case here for taxing gang members who kill children in plain view on the streets of Chicago, but that’s not going to happen.

Healthcare reform boils down to common sense. Herein are a few items for your consideration:

•The practice of medicine has moved from patient care to government prescribed protocol. There’s no need to listen to the patient; treatment is dictated by government standards.
•As government moves individuals into exchanges via nonprofit plans, the market for private plans will shrink as it has with 44.2 million Medicare beneficiaries and 59 million in Medicaid.
•Medicaid paid for 40.7 percent of all births in 2002.
•We currently provide free healthcare for immigrants, both illegal and legal, if their employers do not extend care. No one really knows the tally, but the Center for Immigration Studies, one of the soundest organizations in the nation when it comes to nonpartisan facts, offers this: “If all uninsured illegal immigrants with incomes below 400 percent of poverty received the proposed credits, the estimated cost to the federal government would be $30.5 billion annually.”

The CIS figures are based on HR 3200—by now we know Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) told the truth when he couldn’t contain himself during the president’s televised address to Congress. Before Wilson told the truth, we told you the same—there’s a backdoor whereby anyone in this country will receive some form of healthcare. If a terrorist decides to come here with a bomb, and he has a mishap, the good old U.S. will treat his injuries.

As a final note, let me offer a nuts and bolts analogy on the free market:

Set up a lemonade stand in your neighborhood, with a drink going for 25 cents. You’re a  nice lemonade stand sort of operator, so you decide you’ll give a freebie to every other person. Pretty soon, your customers wise up and they decide they'll try to bring a  friend. That way they can split the cost and each get a lemonade for 12 ½ cents. You wise up and decide you better start charging 50 cents to cover your freebies. But most can't get someone to split the cost, so the price of lemonade just went up. Since every other customer gets it free, it'd be smart to watch the lemonade stand and be that 'every other person,' right?

That, fellow Main Streeters, in a nutshell, is how your government works. Healthcare 101 is something Baucus, whose background is law not medicine or healthcare, apparently missed as he climbed to the top of the government complex. Healthcare 101 can alternatively be called common sense.

Whether The White House has its way or, more unlikely, opponents triumph, your healthcare costs will rise unless you are low income or perhaps a union member. The only disagreement is on the amount. That cannot, by a very long shot, be called reform.