[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 1:21 AM Eastern on 14 Aug. See below.]
It will come as no revelation to anyone to say that the problem of the affordability of quality health care for citizens of this country is a problem urgently in need of a viable solution. President Obama's vow to pass legislation this year that will be at very least a strong beginning of the implementation of such a viable solution is laudable, but to our way of thinking is off on the wrong track in conceptual principle, and that does not bode well for its operative success even were it enacted into law just as Mr. Obama envisioned it.
Why off on the wrong track in conceptual principle? In short, because it focuses on and is primarily concerned with making health insurance affordable for all U.S. citizens, and that means centrally involving private sector insurance companies, all of which are for-profit businesses. When the matter is health care, that's a concept that's fundamentally perverse, even lunatic. No one in his right mind, if he could possibly avoid it, would willingly put into the hands of businesses and businessmen the securing of his access to those persons and institutions on which depend his physical and mental wellbeing. Businesses and businessmen in the insurance industry are concerned not one whit with your physical and mental wellbeing beyond their actuarial implications. That's not why they're in business. Like all businesses and businessmen, insurance companies are in business for one reason and one reason alone: to make a profit. Whatever increases profit is therefore ipso facto to be desired; whatever decreases it, ipso facto to be avoided. Whenever an insurance company pays out a benefit, it decreases its profit. Whenever it denies a benefit, its profit is increased. One need not be an Einstein to understand and appreciate how that calculus translates when applied to the health care of the insured.
No, we've no magic-bullet solution to the at-critical-mass quality health care affordability problem in this country. All we can say, and say with absolute certainty, is that the involvement of private sector insurance companies in any capacity whatsoever is a central part of the problem, and no part of the solution.
Mini-rant over.
As you were.
Update (1:21 AM Eastern on 14 Aug): For a more temperate and hugely more well-reasoned piece on the issue of health care in this country, see the article, "How American Health Care Killed My Father", online in this month's Atlantic. By recommending this piece, we don't mean to suggest we agree with all the author's points. It's rather that even those points with which we disagree are so well researched and thought through that one simply can't dismiss them out of hand.
A thoroughly worthwhile read.
It's The Music, Stupid!
Peggy
