Health care reform: coverage is not care.
June 8th, 2009 | by Brian |Remember this about politically-controlled health care: “coverage” does not guarantee care. Not just in Canada and England, but in Massachusetts, where everyone must buy insurance — as politicians define it.
Last week the New York Times reported that while more Massachusetts residents gained coverage in the past year, “one in five adults has been told … that a doctor or clinic was not accepting new patients or would not see patients with their type of insurance.” Rejection rates for people with government insurance were twice the rate as those with commercial insurance.
Nor has mandatory insurance helped strained ERs. The Times reported “little change in the use of emergency rooms for non-emergency treatment.”
As with Medicaid and Medicare, Massachusetts faces escalating costs and political rationing of treatment. The Times reported that the plan will “not be sustainable” without “significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.” A chief administrator spoke of “limiting resources for people doing really good stuff.” The lesson: empowering government to run health care empowers it to deny you care.
Yes, insurance companies are frustrating. But don’t blame “the free market;” it’s not free. Consider the tax code, which shackles us to our employer’s plans by discounting employer-provided insurance. This pro-insurer bias limits competition and makes insurers accountable to employers, not patients. It amplifies the threat of pre-existing conditions. It disfigures real insurance into prepaid health care, which encourages over-consumption of treatment that increases costs.
For better health care, demand more freedom, not more political controls.
This was published in the June 6 2009 Boulder Daily Camera.
tags: Daily Camera Editorial Advisory Board, health care
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