Destroying Health Care in America

Ron Paul "For decades, the U.S. healthcare system was the envy of the entire world. Not coincidentally, there was far less government involvement in medicine during this time. America had the finest doctors and hospitals, patients enjoyed high-quality, affordable medical care, and thousands of private charities provided health services for the poor. Doctors focused on treating patients, without the red tape and threat of lawsuits that plague the profession today. Most Americans paid cash for basic services, and had insurance only for major illnesses and accidents. This meant both doctors and patients had an incentive to keep costs down, as the patient was directly responsible for payment, rather than an HMO or government program." - Dr. Ron Paul

Now, after years of government and corporate bloodletting, and rampant insurance company fraud, the picture has dramatically changed for healthcare in America. Today, we are told we have a health care crisis.

Health insurance costs are rising faster than wages or inflation, and "medical causes" are increasingly being cited by bankruptcy filers in the United States. Americans pay, on average, nearly $7,000 per person for medical costs, whereas citizens in the next-highest-cost developed pay around $3,200 per person. We're told that costs are so high because we get the best health care in the world. Yet, a recent report from the Commonwealth Fund rates American health care quality to the lowest among 19 industrialized nations. The World Health Organization ranks the U.S. 26th in quality of health care of the advanced countries. Americans are waiting longer to see doctors and are more likely to die of preventable or treatable illnesses. We squander money on wasteful administrative costs, illnesses caused by medical error and inefficient use of time, the report concluded. We lead the world in spending, with 7.5 percent of health expenditures made on insurance administration, for example.

Employer Provided Health Insurance
You buy your own auto insurance, your own homeowners insurance, and your own life insurance. Why, then, do we allow our employers to buy something as private as our healthcare? Because they can get a better deal for us? Because they care more about us? Or perhaps, as many would argue, if they didn't have insurance through their employer, they probably wouldn't have insurance at all. So, why doesn't the employer provide auto, home, and life insurance as well? Read on... I'll tell you why!

"The problems with our health care system are not the result of too little government intervention," according to Dr. Ron Paul, "but rather too much." It’s time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care set up by government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care, says Dr. Paul.

"One big problem arises from the 1974 ERISA law, which grants tax benefits to employers for providing health care, while not allowing similar incentives for individuals. This results in the illogical coupling between employment and health insurance. As such, government removed the market incentive for health insurance companies to cater to the actual health-care consumer. As a greater amount of government and corporate money has been used to pay medical bills, costs have risen artificially out of the range of most individuals."

In 1957, the federal marginal income tax rate was 91%. Corporate executives, particularly those in the 91% bracket, told their employers they didn't want to be payed more money because they had to pay the government $9,100 in taxes for a $10.000 raise. So the corporate executives followed by the labor unions went to Washington and obtained the right that if their company paid for their healthcare, they wouldn't get taxed on the benefit.

So, if you're employed with an income in the upper half, and work for a company that pays your healthcare, the federal government ends up paying half your healthcare. The benefit you get, you don't pay income taxes on. In fact, the only reason employers pay our healthcare is because they pay non-taxable benefits on healthcare. Further, we are forced to buy healthcare from our employer because we get a 2:1 advantage over buying the insurance privately, because of the income tax deduction.

The working mother with three children working for a company that does not provide healthcare has to earn two dollars to buy her children $1 worth of healthcare.

We should immediately stop this unfair practice and should give a tax deduction to anybody who buys their own healthcare.

When we give a tax deduction to people who buy their own health care, the first thing that is going to happen is that every employee working at a company that provides healthcare is going to get a pay raise! Assuming the employer has been paying $5,000 a year for your insurance and now pays you the $5,000, you can take that money and start shopping for PERSONAL health care insurance.

Assuming your healthcare insurance is now costing you $5,000 a year, by increasing your deductible, you can reduce your premium. For example, say you get a $2,000 deductible plan and reduce your premium $3,000, you are immediately ahead $1,000.

And, insurance consumers will pay more attention to what they are paying for. When they discover a particular drug, doctor, or procedure is too expensive they will look for another option. People would start comparison shopping for health care matters (insurance, doctor visits, etc.). In the present health care system, who cares what the costs are? Why should you care since someone else is paying for it. If you were paying for it, you will be more involved in finding the lowest cost health care services and wouldn't stand for those people overcharging for their goods and services.

In other words, the health care industry would be forced to be more efficient and competition would drive healthcare prices down. Get the employer out of health care and allow entrepreneurs deliver a better product for a lower cost. Our brightest minds would start focusing on more efficient ways to deliver health care, doctors & hospitals would have new incentives to invest in new equipment, technologies and procedures. Service might actually come to the health care industry! Health costs would actually start going down.

In yet another Problem-Reaction-Solution technique, the elite ruling class have pretty effectively been manipulating dumbed down Americans to join their New World Order program of universal health care. The corporate/government cooperative created the problem in the first place with their ERISA law, tax laws, and regulatory agencies driving good doctors out of practice and forcing them into the Corporate sector where profits are put ahead of people. Access to health care services declined and costs rose.

As the corporate health care monopoly grew, drug companies and HMOs continue to lobby Congress for more socialized medicine and more money. As more fiat money is poured in to the health care system by the Federal government, prices skyrocket, services decline, and more and more desperate people react by demanding relief.

As usual, government intervention in the private market failed to deliver the promised benefits and caused the consequences we now suffer, but Congress never blames itself for the problems created by bad laws. Instead, we are told more government – in the form of “universal coverage” – is the solution.

Cradle to Grave Health Care
Health care with the efficiency of the postal service and the compassion of the IRS.

The goal of the ruling New World Order elite is create a global populace dependent on faceless bureaucrats providing for their health care.

Bill Clinton proposed a Health Security Act that would have converted 1/7 of the nation's budget into a health bureaucracy. The freedom to choose physicians and to pick a desired treatment were virtually eliminated. In addition, those who disobey the system would receive harsh punishment. According to Bill Clinton, his health care legislation would have "criminalized" most avenues patients and doctors could take to obtain and supply health care outside the plan.

For example, parents who pay for their child's medical care not covered by the Clinton health care plan or "alliance" could have be convicted of criminal bribery and graft and fined or imprisoned.
Doctors who cooperate with such parents could also be imprisoned.
Even citizens who use their own money to avoid waiting lists and rationing could be sent to jail.
President Clinton's health-reform plan would have required every American to carry a health identification card bearing a tracking id that could be used for computerized tracking of medical or insurance records. But some worry that this could jeopardize the confidentiality of a patient's medical history.

In the wake of their failure to pass Clinton's National Health Insurance plan, socialists are touting their success in passing Health Insurance Reform in the form of the Kennedy/Kassebaum Act. In a clear violation of the Tenth Amendment, this Act gives the Federal government powers reserved for the states. It does not allow states to pass their own Health Insurance plans, states are only required to do what the Federal government allows them. Their state plans must pass muster by the Department of Health and Human Services or be forced to revert to Federal insurance.

Democrats and Republicans alike are plotting to completely destroy private health care in America and allow for the federal takeover of this industry. Every plan being proposed requires certain things of every citizen. One plan requires, mandatory preventative visits to the doctor. Another requires that proof of health care must be rendered before a citizen can be hired on a job. Every program requires that all citizens have some form of health care that is regulated by the government. In addition, each program places several regulatory requirements on the health care industry itself which, at least for the moment is still under the private sector. For each of these proposed health care programs we as citizens are being told that we must relinquish regulatory control of an aspect of our personal life, namely health care, to the control of the Federal Government.

Rationed Health Care
Buried in Obama's economic stimulus bill is a new plan for rationed health care. The stimulus bill includes health rules to have medical treatments tracked electronically by a federal system. But it goes further by establishing a new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, that monitors treatments, as Betsy McCaughey, the former Lt. Governor of New York, says, “to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.” “The goal is to reduce costs and ‘guide’ your doctor’s decisions,” she explains. “These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book” where ‘doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.’”

“Medicare now pays for treatments deemed safe and effective. The stimulus bill would change that and apply a cost- effectiveness standard set by the Federal Council,” McCaughey writes. The bill’s provisions are based on the UK system, where cost is more important than treatment and medical care. That has required patients to put off care until their conditions worsen.

Medicare

President George W. Bush drained the fiscal resources of Medicare by forcing it to compete with subsidized private insurance plans which are allowed to arbitrarily select or not select those they will cover; failing to provide reasonable levels of reimbursements to Medicare providers, thereby discouraging providers from participating in the program, and designing a Medicare Part D benefit without cost controls which allowed pharmaceutical companies to gouge the American taxpayers for the price of prescription drugs. The President created, manipulated, and disseminated information given to the citizens and Congress of the United States in support of his prescription drug plan for Medicare that enriched drug companies while failing to save beneficiaries sufficient money on their prescription drugs.

Who are the winners and losers?
As government bureaucracy continues to give preferences and protections to HMOs and trial lawyers, the winners will continue to be the Insurance companies, the Pharmaceutical companies, and the federal government.

The losers are American citizens who will pay ever rising prices and receive declining care while doctors continue to leave the profession in droves. Inflation hits the middle class and the poor the most. Those are the people who are losing it.

The answer is not a system of outright socialized medicine, but rather a system that encourages everyone – doctors, hospitals, patients, and drug companies – to keep costs down. As long as “somebody else” is paying the bill, the bill will be too high. Real health care reform will only come when we get back to the Constitutional principle of limited government and get the government, lawyers, and the courts out of our health care decisions. So long as they are allowed to make our health care decisions, the ONLY criteria for health care providers will be greed.