HEALTH CARE REFORM

Lets think out of the box. What if you were king and you declared health insurance against the law. No one would be allowed to have health insurance. Everyone would have to pay for anything related to health care to the best of their ability. What, do you think, would happen? Chaos?

First, you would have more money at your disposal. Whatever money you now spend on health insurance you would have - to spend or save as you wish. If the business that employs you supplies your health insurance, that business would have more money to pay you or to keep for itself. A smart business owner would do something to help his employees to stay healthy because it would be to his benefit.

Second, you would have less health expenses than your neighbor if you were healthier than your neighbor. The incentive to stay healthy would be obvious. Chronic illness would be hugely expensive. People without any money would have to do without or depend on the generosity of others.

Third, health care suppliers would offer only what the user could afford. Health care suppliers would find their niche, tending to the rich or to the poor. A new level of service would be established.

Enough of your being king. This just wouldn't work . . . or would it. This IS the health care system we had in this country at one time. George Washington never had health insurance. Of course, its rumored that he had wooden teeth.

The first insurance of this type was called accident insurance and it was offered in the 1850s to railroad and steamboat workers. The first real health (sickness) insurance in our country showed up in the 1890s. The first employer sponsored health insurance dates to 1911 . . . less than 100 years ago. Insurance for hospital care dates to the 1920s . . . that's the year my dad was born. (He was born in his home.)

Medicare is government sponsored health insurance for the elderly and it was established in 1965. At the same time, Medicaid was established as health insurance for the very poor. The next year, I got married.

The point is; health insurance hasn't been here forever. Maybe we shouldn't be so afraid to change the system. Let's all just try to make sure we improve what we have but keep it separate it from the government. We can't afford to have a system that works no better than the U.S. Postal Service. We can't afford another government sponsored enterprise that operates like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We can't afford a system that our legislators will not use themselves.
:D