Health Insurance is not Health Care

A major topic out of Washington these days is “Health Care”. What I find interesting is that it is not actual health care they are talking about – as in quality and accessibility of such – but is in fact about health insurance coverage for all.

And while so many are cheering the government on for “Universal Healthcare” they are forgetting a few simple facts.

Health insurance is not health care. Everyone has accessibility to health care. Those who are uninsured use the emergency rooms. Granted, it makes for long waits when you are not a real emergency, but I’m not sure that having a government issued health insurance card will change these people’s habit of just going to the ER for treatment.

Many people I know moan and groan about the costs to the taxpayers for the Medicaid and Medicare programs. They complain that these people get free health insurance while the rest of us work our butts off to pay for ours, either solely on our own or through our employers. Medicare is not free either as most Social Security recipients have about $100 per month deducted from their monthly payment to pay for it. That $100 per month makes life very hard from some elderly folks.

Our representatives are talking about a government sponsored program that would insure everyone. So who exactly is going to pay for this? That’s right, the working class taxpayer, that’s who. So I’m not sure why they think this Universal Health Care thing will be any different.

Then there is a good chance that once you are on a government insurance program you have just opened the door for the government to start telling you exactly how to live. I’d bet that it wouldn’t be long before the mandates came telling us what we could and could not eat, what activities we could and could not participate in, how much exercise and what kind we were required to do daily.

This also doesn’t take into account the fact that having health insurance of some kind would be mandatory. Unless the government run health insurance program is totally free (no premiums, co-pays or deductibles) there will still be people who can’t afford it. Those making minimum wage can barely support themselves with 2 paychecks making purchasing health insurance still unaffordable for them.

Now if Medicaid and Medicare are so good, as I’ve seen stated lately when these discussions come up, why not just change the income requirements on Medicaid and lower the age requirement for Medicare to allow those without health insurance to enroll? Why create yet another system when we already have two that seem to work?

Health insurance is not health care. They should consider reigning in the insurance companies to make existing insurance more affordable, and to prevent them from turning anyone down because of existing health issues, etc. Then reign in the pharmaceutical companies to make the costs of the drugs doctors prescribe more affordable. At least this would be a real start with a good chance at working. That is IF making sure everyone has health insurance is the real goal.