Issues Under Fire: What's Wrong With Obama-Care? Some Say It's Just Bad Business
Monitoring the headlines, we noticed we may be witnessing the collapse of President Obama's historic Affordable Healthcare Act. Once seen and sold as a Godsend to those who couldn't afford health insurance or could, but were rejected due to preexisting conditions by the "healthcare industry", may be right back where they started. With costs rising and providers bailing, the insidious politics surrounding this issue could provide the death knell for Obama-Care. And frankly speaking, after all things considered, it might not be a bad idea. Let us explain.
After traveling to other industrialized nations to better understand how their healthcare delivery systems worked, we were never fully sold on the watered-down product President Obama presented as a solution. While it did address the most egregious practices of turning away patients with prior medical issues, eliminating lifetime limits on coverage and allowing consumers to appeal insurance companies' coverage determinations through external review processes, in our view, none of this met the threshold of true healthcare reform. Even added enticements like free annual checkups and preventative care visits seemed to be just that - added enticements.
If the truth is ever allowed to be known, the Affordable Healthcare Act was doomed to fail from its inception. With other all inclusive, cost efficient, universal healthcare delivery systems to study, why America was sold this haphazardly conceived and poorly constructed "hot mess" can only lead one to believe failure was always the intended outcome. We're making this assertion based upon the fact that Obama-Care had to be developed within extremely strict parameters of America's free market system. And while we'll do our very best not to let this post descend into just another conspiracy theory, there are some inescapable facts that must be understood.
Fact number one: The insurance and healthcare industries are just that. Industries. And to expect any industry to give up access to unlimited profit margins without a fight is a most unreasonable expectation. These industries are run by corporate executives and healthcare professionals providing services for a fee. When a patient (customer) enters a doctor's office, a clinic, hospital or any medical facility, they should never forget they're entering a business. These are not healers, these are business people with rents, salaries, insurance and medical equipment responsibilities. These healthcare businesses are looking to be profitable and in American healthcare, profit is the priority, not the patient.
Fact number two: The insurance companies and professional healthcare providers are making business decisions when they decide whether or not to stay in a particular market or accept an Obama-Care card carrying patient. If they can't see a profit in the patient or the market, that patient and that market won't see any healthcare. Nothing personal, it's just business. When enough healthcare providers and insurance companies determine they can't realize a sustainable profit, the entire concept of Obama-Care will collapse.
Fact number three: Fewer insurers in a given market will ultimately lead to fewer providers and higher costs to the healthcare consumer. Fewer providers in a market will lead to longer waits for office visits and fuller waiting rooms when the consumer arrives. And with millions of Americans being forced to purchase this embarrassingly inferior system by the Affordable Care Act's mandate, we're forced to join the calls for trashing this discombobulating madness and replacing it with something better. Unfortunately, this brings us to the last and most frightening fact of all.
Fact number four: Despite the rabid calls for the repeal and replacement of the President's Affordable Care Act, to date, no one is presenting anything better. And anything we'd consider real healthcare reform will unlikely be considered profitable enough by the insurance or healthcare industries. Let's face it, universal healthcare is an anathema to the insurance and healthcare industries. The two concepts are diametrically opposed to one another and always will be. Until Americans can change their healthcare delivery system from a business model to a social service, they'll continue to struggle with ever-escalating medical costs.
Bottom line: Unlike America, other industrialized nations provide universal healthcare as a social benefit. The costs are controlled by the state. The citizens pay for their government sponsored healthcare through progressive tax structures. The more you make, the more taxes you'll contribute. In systems like these, every citizen is covered. And those providing healthcare services aren't considering profit margins when managing a patient's care. In these places, healthcare is a citizen's right, not a product to be purchased. Podcast below.
Comments
Post a Comment