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Complex Numbers #614893 added October 26, 2008 at 6:39pm
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Freedom
Someone asked me the other day what I thought of "socialized" health care.
My off-the-cuff, edited for typos and clarity, answer:
"Socialized" is a loaded term.
Under our current system, those who have the right type of job contribute to a for-profit company for various types of health coverage. In some cases (like my company) the insurance is 100% employer-paid; in others, some lower percentage. Those who need more care don't usually pay more than those who need less, meaning that healthy people contribute to the health care of those who need more care AND to the insurance company's bottom line.
People who don't have the right kind of job pay more, because the risk isn't spread out over a group. Or they do without health insurance, which represents a more hidden burden on society.
In other countries (often labeled "socialist" by the right wing of this country), health care is provided in other ways, usually involving higher taxes.
If one were to back out their actual cost of health care, one would find that the individuals in those countries aren't paying any more taxes than we are; in some cases, less. Put another way, if you add what I pay for health insurance (via my company) to what I pay in taxes (between my company and personally), my total obligation is approximately that of, say, someone in Sweden, on a relative basis.
So to answer your question, what I think of "government-run" medical care is that if it provides access to coverage for more of the population, all of whom pay taxes of some sort or another, I'm for it. Provided it can be handled in such a way as to create less overhead than what we have now in the insurance-company-profit situation.
The individual's response included the postulate that it may be that a whole lot of people are tied to their soul-deadening, corporate jobs because said jobs provide them with health insurance.
Granted, a whole lot of people are in debt. I read statistics before this whole credit fiasco blew up in our faces that indicated that the average savings rate of Americans was negative - meaning that as a group, we have more debt than savings. I don't know if it's still the case, but it wouldn't surprise me. A person in debt has restricted freedom: if you owe, say, $200,000 (and between student loans, mortgage, car loans and consumer debt, this is not an unreasonable amount), your life is turned over to servicing those loans. While mortgage debt can be reduced or eliminated by selling the home, and student loan debt can, as I understand it, be deferred under certain circumstances, there's debt that you're stuck with, and a good part of your salary goes to paying that debt. You can't leave your soul-deadening job, or the creditors will come after you, and interest will continue to go up. Sure, there's bankruptcy, but that carries its own problems.
But what if you don't have significant debt, and maybe even some savings, and you just want to take your chances, strike off on your own, and, say, become a massage therapist or eBay retailer?
Not and keep your health insurance.
Is this why there's such a backlash against "socialized" medicine coming from the far right, which at times acts as if it's run by religious extremists, and at other times seems as if it's a puppet of the big corporations? Are there people - powerful people - afraid that if we suddenly had a parachute for folks who don't want to play the corporate cubicle game, they won't?
I think the health care system has many flaws, but one big one is how it's currently run by insurance companies. They dictate, rather than your doctor, what is "medically necessary." And I think that it's a direct result of insurance being in control of medicine that the cost of health care is so high.
Let me explain, briefly: As recently as a year ago, we had real estate values that were unsustainably high. I said it then, and with recent events, it seems I was right. But one reason why they were so high was a matter of affordability. With the advent of easily available interest-only loans, balloon mortgages, and low-teaser ARMs, a whole lot of people appeared to be able to afford houses that they otherwise wouldn't have - because their incremental cost (their monthly cost) was suddenly within their means as opposed to the way it would be with a traditional 15- or 30- year mortgage. This allowed sellers to artificially inflate their total costs, while still putting houses within reach of the average family.
And so we have the same situation with health care - they can charge more, so they do. We don't see the cost, even though we may get a bill for thousands of dollars, because on that bill it says your actual cost is, like, $20.
It's inflated. It's not sustainable. And it's going to bite us on the ass the same way that home-price inflation did.
It's not conducive to individual freedom.
I'm not saying people should rely on "the government" to pay for their health care, or that "the government" should provide health care. But the system as it stands now benefits only big corporations.
Yes, "socialism" is a loaded term, these days. The Republicans are using it as a pejorative, like "liberal." And, last I heard, the major sign that a country was turning "socialist" was that the banks get nationalized. Ummm... d'oh. But as I understand it, socialism is essentially the radical notion that individuals matter.
Isn't that what we're supposed to be all about? |
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