How did healthcare become such a polarizing issue? Geez!
Yes, it’s expensive. Yes, it has bankrupt many individuals and families.
Yes, drugs are really expensive and yes, drug companies are prospering. Related? Yes.
Yes, large companies and government provide health insurance to their employees.
Yes, our elected officials get great health insurance.
Yes, it is hard to leave employment with a large company and the insurance they provided to start a business and yes, new small businesses are where the job growth is and has been.
Yes, insurance companies prior to about 2009 did not have to sell anybody an individual policy if they thought that individual might actually use it and yes that statement is a slight exaggeration but conceptually accurate.
Yes, insurance companies had to sell insurance policies to groups as small as two but the premiums they could charge were not affordable to small businesses that had a group size less than 100 if as few as one employee or dependent had a precondition.
Yes, individuals without insurance could wait until an illness or physical condition got to a critical stage to receive treatment in the emergency room of hospitals. And, yes, hospitals would try to collect reimbursement including efforts to make those patients sell whatever assets they had to pay for those services. And, yes, the medical costs that remained, would be paid by increased rates/costs to everybody else.
Yes, it does cost more to treat an emergency condition than it does to avoid the emergencies through early detection and preventative treatment which is typically the case for those with insurance.
Yes, Medicare needs the legal ability to negotiate drug prices and yes, drug companies have apparently been able to keep legislators from eliminating the law that prevents Medicare from negotiating.
Yes, there are large populations in poorer countries that obtain their food from garbage dumps and clog streets that tourists visit to beg for money and food. Social Security keeps many older and physically and mentally challenged Americans from doing the same in the United States.
Yes, if it were not for Medicaid, only those Americans 65 and older would qualify for government managed and provided Medicare. And, yes, all others would have to purchase private insurance at rates tied to the size or healthiness or location of the group they are in.
Yes, without government subsidies, those Americans with the lowest incomes that find themselves in an expensive group will not be able to afford insurance.
Yes, there are some that want to reduce spending on health insurance subsidies in order to reduce taxes and balance the budget. And, yes, there are some that want to use tax revenues to provide insurance subsidies. Yes, one would lead to fewer people having insurance and make it difficult to leave a job that has health insurance benefits to start a business if that person has any history of a preexisting condition. And, yes, one would make it more difficult to reduce taxes but create a more mobile workforce.
Is there a way to reduce the cost of insurance and drug prices? That way might be through a creative reinvention of the group and for government to negotiate drug prices for that reinvented group.