Why the Obama health care plan is bad.

American politics can be best described as an ever lasting battle between conservatives and liberals, ideologies transcending parties and labels, manifesting from deep rooted moral convictions, knowledge and experience. As much as I would prefer to introduce a third perspective into this struggle, the equilibrium between these two forces allows for a perfect harmony to exist just like the eternal struggle between darkness and light, wet and dry, good and evil. There needs to be balance in this world and these political ideologies provide this balance. However the ability to articulate one's position is often compromised as emotions and political interests take over, so I am going to simply state why I believe the current health care reform is unacceptable for what this nation currently requires.

Firstly, let us honestly admit in an open forum, what is currently wrong with the status quo and what needs to change. There are several aspects that I believe most people would find objectionable and would prefer a change. First and foremost, current coverage as most Americans enjoy it is extremely limiting in the event of a catastrophic ailment. As the saying goes, America is one of the few world powers where everyone is "one serious disease from bankruptcy", I am paraphrasing of course, but the idea stands. People can pay for ten, twenty, thirty years for health insurance, but a terminal illness can cost them their job, cost them insurance and leave them utterly bankrupt. Secondly, insurance companies tend to run a tight ship market and prevent competition from truly driving down costs and enticing innovation, this violates free market concepts in a most egregious and insulting fashion.

The problem is NOT the supposed 40-50 million uninsured, because the number is meaningless as it includes millions of people who choose to be uninsured and millions more who are illegal immigrants and simply do not deserve to be in our insurance pool. The problem is NOT the quality of our care. Despite convenient numbers from the WHO alluding that America spends the most and gets the least, we simply have the best medicine in the world. Our ranking in certain aspects may not be the best, but every ranking has an explanation and every number has a methodology behind it that can significantly alter the calculation. For example our infant mortality rate would be substantially lower if we were to count mortality in a way Canada counts where babies born under a certain weight are not counted at all! Ultimately, wealthy foreigners seek out Americans doctors when they truly need important procedures, not the other way around.

Therefore by addressing issues that do not need addressing and ignoring fundamental problems within our health care system, Obama's proposal will cause harm to this country. The first proposal based on a faulty problem is the creation of a self sustaining public health option, which in theory would inspire competition and drive down costs. This however is a faulty concept, because government options are seldom self sustaining and skew competition. If the idea truly worked, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should have technically inspired healthy competition in the mortgage industry. Instead it created an environment where private companies took on substantial risk trying to compete with a government sponsored enterprise, a task that is not only impossible but financially suicidal. In turn, Bear Sterns operating on extraordinary leverage went bankrupt (the first victim), while Fannie and Freddie got bailed out by taxpayers, something they knew would happen all along. Instead of creating additional companies and innovation, presence of government involvement virtually wiped out every company associated with mortgage underwriting. Similarly, a public option will create substantial stress on private insurers as employers will inevitably begin dumping health coverage as part of a standard benefit package. After all, why would an employer spend money providing insurance when people can simply go on a cheaper public option, with never ending financing? Think about it, the presence of a government option introduces competition that is impossible to battle. Just like Medicare, bankrupt and hemorrhaging money on a daily basis, this public option will simply establish a new entitlement and further saddle this country with debt. No problem solved, potentially new problems introduced.

Furthermore and equally disheartening is by providing an opportunity for millions of people who do not necessarily want or need or ever deserve insurance, Obama's plan immediately creates a massive stress on our physician pool. We already have in some areas a shortage of doctors and specialists, albeit not as bad as Canada or England. But how can a plan introduce millions of new patients, yet provide no additional doctors and expect the system to function as intended? It cannot and will result in longer wait times, doctor shortages and perhaps worse of all, doctors leaving certainly professions. For example Medicare has the unfortunate effect of paying doctors for certain procedures while refusing to pay for others, this in turn skews medicinal practices as hospitals inevitably shift to doing only procedures covered under Medicare. If we were to expand these immoral practices, this shift would further expand these practices and sap the medical profession of practicing medicine as they see fit. More importantly, people currently insured will experience a deterioration of health services, Obama's claims that nothing will change can be best described as laughable and worse as outright deceit.

What we need instead, is to address the problems outlined. We need to reform health insurance coverage to provide health care much like life insurance. Life insurance would not be worth squat if after a certain amount of time they decided that paying out was not in their best interest. Our health insurance should do one thing, ready? Insure! Not insure for the time being, but insure forever. This will completely eliminate the first real problem, which is, people losing their wealth due to crippling diseases like cancer. Perhaps health insurers will need to raise premiums, but at least the fear of losing coverage will no longer be an issue. We can create a new breed of private health insurers that provide disaster health coverage, what can be simpler?

Finally, we need to introduce competition. First, we need to break down state borders and allow Americans to buy health care coverage from anyone in the country. The more the merrier, real competition from real companies, not a public option run by incompetent federal employees subsidized by taxpayer money. Secondly, we need to get rid of Medicare and possibly consider getting rid of Medicaid. Government entities introduce bias and skewed competition, establishes unmanageable entitlements, wastes money, always on the verge of bankruptcy and limits private insurers from providing valuable services. Removing the Fannie Mae of the health care world, will do wonder in spurring much needed competition and combined with health insurers offering life long coverage will keep seniors happy. Of course the big problem is what to do with those currently dependent on Medicare, how can we continue to provide service to these people who simply cannot afford it? No easy answer, but it simply goes to show you that once the government gets involved, reversing course becomes an insurmountable task, a task we need to avoid doing at all costs.