Why Not Have True Single Payer?
While the health care debate has focused on the question of public option or no public option it seems that idea of true universal health care has been forgotten. The only way to make sure that all Americans get access to the health care they deserve is to abandon the idea that insurance companies are a fair and efficient distributor of that care. While there is very real concern over a government run program, the advantages in overall cost and true universal coverage far outweigh the possible problems. After all, millions of Americans including anybody over 65 or any veterans are benefiting from government run health care right now and are extremely happy with the quality of that care. If that level of care is good enough for our senior citizens then why isn’t it good enough for the rest of the country? Why should anybody have to subsidize the insurance industry just to receive basic health care?
The primary motivation of an insurance company is to make money, not provide health care. If they can make money by rejecting claims and dropping customers who get too expensive, they will. If they can make money by denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions, they will. They are not an altruistic organization. What value, exactly, do they bring to the health care process? Insurance for your car or house is easy to understand. You pay an insurance company some small amount of money every month so that if you happen to get in an accident or if your house happens to burn down, you do not go bankrupt trying to pay for it. The perfect customer for an insurance company is somebody who never gets in an accident and never has a homeowner claim. Health insurance, however, is different. At some point in time, everybody gets sick and needs to pay some major medical bills. Even if you don’t need catastrophic care, you should be going to your doctor on a regular basis and participating in preventative care with things like prostate exams and mammograms. The perfect health insurance customer is somebody who pays into the system every month until they are 65, never goes to the doctor, and dies instantly in a car crash.
In a health insurance system there are three people involved in the process: you, your doctor, and the insurance company. Only you and your doctor are essential components to your own health. The insurance companies are only there to make a buck. They are only there to pay the bills and it is in their best interest to pay as little as possible. You, as a health insurance consumer, are not receiving any real value in that arrangement and you certainly are not getting better quality care.
With a single payer system, there is still a third component to the process but this time there is no profit motive. Without the profit motive, you are automatically going to save billions of dollars and more importantly, you are going to be able to cover everybody. Anybody against that is just interested in putting more money in the pockets of the insurance companies.
