Health Care and America (opinion)

You've probably heard people talk about how far behind America's health care system is. You've probably heard them talk about how awesome the health care system is in Europe or Canada or whateverland.

I think all these people are crazy.

Let me explain how I understand our current medical system. There are four major players: you, doctors, health insurance companies, and "other people".

You pay the health insurance company.
"Other people" pay the health insurance company.
The health insurance company pays your doctor.
The health insurance company pays other people's doctors.


The nature of insurance is such that when you pay money to the insurance company it stops being "yours". You have no more right to the money than "other people" and vice versa. That way when someone needs a new kidney they get access to some of "your" money and don't have to foot the bill themselves.

It's fairly obvious that this can be abused. "Oh , Mr. Young, I see you've got another concussion, let us pay to fix that for you". So we invented copays and patient portions and percentage coverage so that we would still feel some economic pain to discourage us from doing things that hurt us, expose us to illness, or seeking treatment that likely won't do any good.

So if we have these checks in place, the natural question to ask now is "Why not get rid of the private companies that are getting rich off health insurance and roll it into the public sector (governement)?"

Here's why. The copays and deductibles aren't the only checks. At a health insurance company when you want to get some insurance money to pay for your [fill in condition here] you go ask them for it and "The Man" looks it over and decides whether or not the refusal of your claim is 1) illegal or 2) so bad for his company's reputation he would take a loss. If it doesn't fall into those 2 categories, you don't get the money. This isn't perfect but the money that used to be "mine" isn't going to be given away to someone who wants to see a doctor who specializes in treatment via sunflowers and unicorns because "The Man" isn't going to be giving out any money he doesn't have to. He's going to use it to lower my rates or line his pockets. Mostly though since 10,000,000 people are lining his pockets it doesn't take much from each of us to keep him turning down the unicornians.

Now let's think about how the government works. The people making the call have no interest in whether or not they dole out money. The lady at the counter doesn't get a cut. The manger on duty doesn't get a cut. The head bossman of the imaginary FFHCA (Federal Free Health Care Administration) doesn't get a cut. So why shouldn't they give out the money? What would ever be the point of ending the year more than $5 in the black? Survey says: let the man see the unicorn.

Throw that in with the horror that is letting the people that wrote our tax code write your insurance plan and I'm opting out.