Healthcare

Recently, the House and Senate have been voting on various bills for healthcare. Many people are for universal healthcare because they believe every has the “right” to healthcare access no matter if they live in the Hamptons or the South of the Bronx. While well intentioned politicians want to do the best for society there are obviously costs associated with giving healthcare coverage to everyone.

According to many sources 46 million Americans don’t have healthcare insurance. This number can be a little misleading. Many of these people can afford healthcare yet don’t purchase it either because they believe they are healthy and don’t need healthcare or don’t want to be burdened with the cost. Another large proportion of this 46 million can get healthcare through Medicare or Medicaid yet choose not to. With so many people without healthcare what should America do?

Health care costs have been increasing at a rapid rate for many decades. Healthcare costs have increased more than education, transportation, and even housing. Part of the problem is the way the system is set up. Currently, if you have healthcare insurance and go to your doctor most likely you will only pay the co-pay (relatively cheap). In cases of catastrophic events the insurance company will cover the majority of your costs while you only have to pay a small percentage of the actual cost. The problem however is that healthcare insurance covers too many things. For instance, if you get a small cold and go to the doctor insurance will cover that when in reality the cold will most likely go away on its own. People also have an incentive to overuse healthcare since their employer is not paying for it and they aren’t. To say healthcare insurance is based on capitalism would not be entirely true. State governments heavily regulate insurance companies which make it illegal to cross state lines to purchase health insurance. If consumers were able to purchase their own healthcare there would be much more competition which would led to insurance companies competing for customers based off price and the type of coverage.

Competition could apply to the people that couldn’t afford healthcare insurance as well. These people could receive vouchers so they could purchase healthcare from where ever they would like which would create competition between doctors and healthcare providers. I think it’s interesting that I can go online and search the price for a plasma TV, stereo system, or DVD player but I can’t research what the cost of a MRI scan. Health insurance needs capitalism and not the current system of having employers pay for employees for which decisions are made by a third party.