I think it is all in what you are used to and what your specific experience has been. Even people working for huge organizations are seeing their portion of the monthly premium increase plus they are concerned about moving to another job (or losing the one they have) and having to get new insurance as they get older or have significant preexisting conditions.
IMO the option to do nothing doesn't exist much less the option to insure the currently uninsured at the costs we currently have. We aren't going to add 40 million to private insurance but paid for by the taxpayer plus live with health care costs rising much faster than inflation or wages plus live with increasing numbers of underinsured or those whose insurance companies simply refuse to pay.
Therefore, we are left with some pretty stark choices.
I think there are a number of interesting options including the idea of buying into the Congressional plan with no preexisting condition exclusions, no refusals to cover and at a reasonable rate. I don't know where that particular plan went to but it could crowd out private insurance and we could be done...a 'free choice' solution that gives us single payer.
We could also get rid of employer sponsored health insurance, put everyone into the private market as individuals and have your 20-30% run screaming to the exits (excluding, of course, those who really don't need insurance because they can foot the entire bill). That could have been the result of the McCain plan which people were against anyway.
As for pay, I don't think money has as much to do with outcome as the market says it does. People who are influenced so completely by money would probably be consider psychopaths. Plus, if money were such a significant determinant of good outcomes then we wouldn't be bailing out the masters of the universe and their idiotic, obviously completely defective risk models.
More people would become doctors, with excellent bedside manners, if there were more seats in medical schools and if we footed the bill. As with investment banking, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to be the average doc...many would qualify and make very good doctors.
I don't think you get a significantly better surgeon for $10 million/year as you get for $200K/year especially if there wasn't the overhang of medical school bills. As for big malpractice insurance bills, they only affect about 2% (so I read) of medical costs plus they go down when doctors stop committing malpractice AND they treat their patients with respect.
Plenty of people get paid average salaries yet still go to jobs in teaching, research, the arts, public service, etc. Our country has gone off its rocker with money and that has cost us big time.
These incredibly expensive and damaging bubbles are caused IMO by this addiction to money as the only definition of success and worth. We can stop that now because we can't afford it anyway. |
