Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Some Health Care Logic

The problem is that SOMEONE has to pay for the cost of providing sick people health care. By logic alone, not everyone can pay less than the health care they consume, some people have to pay more in order for insurance to work. It doesn't matter if government runs it or if its single payer, the funds have to come from somewhere be it taxes or premiums.

Recently, Health and Human Services announced that, "The provision of the law that permits young adults under 26, long the largest uninsured demographic in the country, to remain on their parents’ health insurance program resulted in at least 600,000 newly insured Americans during the first quarter of 2011." Now how much more are these healthy young adults paying (or their parents) into the system? If insurance companies only increase premiums by the amount of expected costs to treat these healthy people, then it makes no difference. This is what I suspect has happened.

Right now, it seems that no one wants to pay more for health care, but that's an impossibility. For costs to drop for some people, others HAVE to pay more because the aggregate costs have to be accounted for. Either that or health care services need to be rationed (the death panel model) in order to reduce total costs. There is no way around it folks, it's time to face reality and choose from REALISTIC options, not ridiculous and totally impossible outcomes such as lower costs for everyone without any reduction in quality or quantity of care.

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