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Destroying Health Care in America
"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." Its 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 doctors 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
bills 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.
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