...Is a divisive subject, of course, so examples like this one are sure to inflame people on both sides of the debate. In summary, a girl with a serious congenital disorder, who was covered as a child under one government health care program, is now being denied coverage as an adult under another government health care program.
Granted, the circumstances of the case are not completely cut-and-dried, but they drive to the heart of my question about nationalized health care: how is the government system going ensure quality care for people?
From my view, so much of the problem in the health care debate is that it has been reduced to numbers, but just as focus on the numbers to not tell the real story of Iraq, the focus on the numbers about health care do not tell the real story of caring for people.
Given government's record of caring for numbers instead of people, I am skeptical that it is possible for it care about people on the scale a nationalized health care system would require. I also concede that something needs to be done to make health care accessible--note that I did not say affordable, which means I oppose government price controls--to people who would not otherwise have access to such care.
How to do so? If the government is to have a role, then its role should be to guarantee a system of accessibility--government insured medical accounts provided by the market--combined with regulating the parts of the existing system that are driving prices up--tort reform, medical research regulation reform.
But even before such reform can begin, it needs to start with a different reform: The government needs to remember that the people in question are people, not numbers or constituents. Being people, each case has to be treated differently keeping in mind its unique circumstances.
If the government can change its attitude about people, then maybe it has a chance with health care.
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a system of accessibility--government insured medical accounts provided by the market
Kinda like the FDIC?
I'm thinking of a system something like a merger between the FDIC, the TSP (Thrift Savings Plan, a federal retirement system), and FERS (Federal Employee Retirement System of which TSP is a part).
Basically, the idea would be to create an "investment account" into which pre-tax money could be deposited by the individual or a sponsor (think family, employer or a government program). The account would only be able to be invested into government vetted funds (exactly how TSP works) with the additional guarantee of a minimum payout based in a percentage of the total investment (say 10% of the total, no matter what happens to the market). This account would be used for regular medical expenses up to a certain dollar amount (similar to a deductable).
This account would be coupled with a low-premium, high threshhold emergency and long-term health care insurance to be used in unforseen cirumstances. This insurance could be federally guaranteed and could work similarly to the current Medicare suplimental coverage scheme.
The benefit to this scheme is that it would immediately do two things: eliminate Medicaid/care and take the choices about regular medical expenses away from the insurace providers. It would also free the market up to regulate itself since most of the health care dollars would now be invested in the market rather than in the government.
Really, this is just a modified model of how "privatized" social security would work, which system is already working in the form of the TSP provided to millions of federal employees including Congress.
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