I am watching the President's address on
healthcare reform. As usual, the President gives a good speech, and the first half hour or so contains little to complain about. Anecdotes about insurance companies who (and they do) cut people's coverage off when they get diagnosed with cancer, deny people because of
pre-existing conditions etc.. These stories speak for themselves, and the President does have a point when he says that there is no place for behavior like this in the USA. When you think of the kind of money that gets thrown around in this country, the size of executive bonuses, it's hard to dispute this point. It's hard to rationalize a woman with breast cancer being cut off insurance and having to haggle to get it back while the cancer spreads. It's hard to rationalize an insurance companies motive to "cherry-pick" it's customers, to
actuarialize people like figures on a table, to better their bottom line, to show wall street that they were more profitable than the previous quarter. It's hard to rationalize the kids that die because they did not have access to medical care for dental problems (this also happens).
At any rate, I'm a good bit through the speech and my only major CONCERNS about this are as follows:
1. Will this whet the appetite for a socialistic minded administration to decide to make other things 'mandatory?'
Healthcare coverage becoming mandatory like car insurance? Well if you don't want car insurance then don't buy a car, but if you don't want health insurance...then what? What's next? Will the administration come out and say that guns are bad and kill people and we all have to pay so let's suspend your constitutional right to bear arms? In other words, don't tread on our freedoms!
2. On a related note, what gives the government the right to dictate to insurance companies what they will do? They must cover people with
pre-existing conditions, no annual or lifetime caps, must cover preventative care (makes sense though) etc.. I know the insurance industry is highly regulated anyway, and there is obviously a place for government to regulate, as I don't believe unbridled capitalism usually generates proper ethics (look at how globalization has caused a race for the bottom in wages and living standards, jobs go to China where working conditions for the employees are wretched)...but what effect will this have on business? How do we know that this won't reduce insurance companies, and limit the options? How do we know if a non-profit insurance company can run well? If it can, why don't we have any number of them?
One thing is for sure: We tend to get the best results when people act in their own best interest. As shocking as this seems, think about how likely you are to get what is true, what is fair, from a haystack of
bureaucrats, some of them peeking their heads out of
someones pocket? If you doubt this, look at how our government let the financial industry rape the taxpayer, and how the
CEOs of so many companies collect million dollar payouts while their companies lose money (not to mention ruin this country, cause unemployment, general misery, suicides, abuse etc).
