Health Insurance vs Healthcare
Since being sworn in as the 45th president of the United States, Trump has worked hard to deliver on the many campaign promises he made to the American people. And despite Democrats and even some Republicans challenging him at every corner, he has pushed forward to implement the people’s agenda.
As an evolving business owner, we know first-hand of the negative impacts of affordable care and the soaring costs. For many medium and small size business owners, they have had to either let people go or stop hiring people due to the mandated healthcare passed by Democrats. And it’s even worse for the individual, forcing some people to cancel their health insurance altogether because of the rising cost of premiums.
Health Insurance is not healthcare. People can afford health care, but they can’t afford health insurance. In its current form, affordable care doesn’t address the number one issue, which is tackling cost. Affordable care lacks market-based solutions that create competition, which benefits the consumer. The ability to purchase healthcare across state lines and greater incentives for younger, healthier people to buy insurance would create a sustainable system, where we all would benefit. However, to do that effectively, we should remove employer and individual mandates. Medicaid should also be reformed because every state has a different program. Healthcare should not be limited to your state because competition keeps the cost down and what we don’t have now is competition, which is one of the areas the president’s plan seeks to rectify.
This is the beginning of turning back very bad legislation that has had 6 years to unfold. Much damage has been done and it will take more time and thoughtful correction to get us on the right track. Minority Leader Nancie Pelosi said we had to pass the bill to see what was in it. Well, it was passed and what is in it has proven to be skyrocketing costs for the everyday person and a law that gets in the middle of individuals and their private healthcare provider.
Medicaid is the 3rd largest budget item for most states, yet we know just having an insurance card does not ensure timely treatment. Expanding Medicaid is expanding inferior insurance. We have to reform Medicaid, which has become a system nearly bankrupt without any level of reform. Each state has different means based on the environment and instead of Washington bureaucrats making the decisions, we should empower each state to make decisions that benefit the needs of their individual state.
No state population is the same. We should block grant Medicaid, allowing states to manage it, and for example, allow individuals to purchase their own policies through health savings accounts (HSAs). This would give the power back to the people and take it away from the government.
Competition drives cost down and quality of services up, which is why it’s essential that we reform affordable care and let the free market work for all, not just some and this is something we can do if we successfully repeal and replace affordable care.
Insurance companies have become the “Doctor,” controlling what physicians can and cannot do. This was not supposed to be the intent of healthcare in America. It is something you see in countries such as Canada and Great Britain and it is a system that is unsustainable and won’t work. In Canada for instance, it could take weeks and sometimes even months for simple procedures and is evidence that government controlled healthcare doesn’t work. The Canadian government spends a significant portion of their GDP on healthcare instead of other necessary needs. This is something that many doubt the American people would stand for because the result could be devastating for many of the programs we as Americans have become accustomed to.
We have allowed the bureaucrats to confuse Health Insurance with Health Care. Insurance is a purely fiscal medium. Its purpose is to protect the loss of your assets if you were to need an expensive medical treatment. Obviously, if you don’t have any assets to protect (i.e. you are poor), there is NO reason to have health insurance. If you get sick, you need Health Care, not Health Insurance. The benevolent government’s role is identifying who should qualify for free medical care and what services should be provided. Forcing the working poor to pay for high deductible insurance plan is a burden that brings no benefit (no assets to protect) and, since 92% of people spend less than $5,000 on health care each year, no free care either. Insurance for the working poor simply drives up the cost of care.
We must allow health insurance to be legal again. Currently, the federal government mandates that insurance is packaged a certain way (making it very expensive) and forces its citizens to buy it. This leads to an overly expensive product that most do not want, but are forced to buy. According to the recent CBO analysis of the GOP health plan, the number of the uninsured will rise by 24 million. Is it any surprise that with the elimination of the ACA individual mandate that the number of uninsured will go up? This simply tells us that even when heavily subsidized, the people still don’t want it (unless forced to buy it).
We must allow the doctor/patient relationship to work again, which is exactly what President Trump is attempting to do by repealing and replacing affordable care. It won’t be a quick fixed and the results won’t be immediate, but in due time the American people will be back in control of their healthcare and we’ll once again have government out of patient/doctor relationships.
