About the only way I know to lower the cost of health insurance for those willing and able to buy it is to let people die on the curb in front of the hospital. Yep, give up your humanity and you too can save on health insurance.
If you opt for humanity and take that person into the hospital, it will cost you, and likely cost you a lot. That person without health insurance will incur costs which the hospital must absorb. The only way a hospital to stay in business if they accept indigent care is to charge paying customers, usually insurers, more to offset the unreimbursed care.
If we are to be humane and provide care for the free riders, is there a better way? If we wait for high blood pressure to cause a heart attack, treatment of that one condition can cost hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. Alternately, drugs to manage the high blood pressure can cost pennies a day – Penny wise, pound foolish.
The reason the republicans struggle to produce a health plan to replace the ACA, even though they have had several years, is there is no plan that actually works if it doesn’t include everybody. There are two ways to do that – make sure everybody has access to affordable care through private insurers or go to a less costly single payer universal healthcare system like just about every other country in the world.
Government managed systems work well. We currently spend much more per capita for healthcare and with poorer outcomes. There are over 40 countries with lower infant mortality rates, greater life expectancies and lower costs.
The new president said while campaigning that his replacement healthcare plan would cover everybody and cost less. As to the costs we won’t know until after the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) scores the new bill. I can predict immediately however that it won’t cover everybody because the first line of conservative talking points is repealing the mandate to purchase insurance, guaranteeing free riders. Another promise is to lower ACA spending, which means that subsidies for the poor will be lowered or eliminated, further reducing the pool of insured.
For those middle income folks there may be cheaper insurance policies available, but only because substandard policies will again become available. Lower costs mean lower coverage. The ACA policies required a minimum standard of coverage which included preventive care. Cheap policies will be available which only cover catastrophic costs. Ironically, avoiding the costs of preventive care leads to greater catastrophic costs.
The real winners with the proposed healthcare law are the rich, no surprise there. Taxes will go down while at the same time subsides not previously available to the rich will go up.
Conservatives continue to try to view healthcare as subject to the same market forces as buying unessential commodities, but it just doesn’t work that way. We are alone in the world with our failure to make that recognition.
