Health-Care Status Quo Unacceptable

The health care debate goes on. It's apparent that a majority of the readers of this paper seem opposed to any change in our healthcare system. While hardly based on a scientific survey, one can be fairly certain that most of the readers either are covered by Medicare or through their employer. Yes, they are satisfied with their health care and are primarily concerned that any change might negatively impact them. It’s a form of that well understood “status quo bias.”

It’s easy to say, “If it isn’t broke, don’t fix it,” assuming excellent health care is readily available to you. But for those millions without health insurance, it’s not broken-it’s almost non-existent!

As many have said, we do have the best health care in the world for those who can afford it. The millions of men, women and children who are not covered have health care comparable to or in some cases worse than in third world countries. That’s a sad commentary on our great country.
 
This issue has recently been reviewed by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, which is an independent, nonprofit organization working outside of government to provide unbiased and authoritative advice to both decision makers as well as the public. It’s literally the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences.

After reviewing the usual statistics of all the people in America who are uninsured or unable to to obtain insurance because of pre-existing conditions, they focused on the "consequences of uninsurance." They analyzed both the long-term and intermittently uninsured, considering the effect of health insurance status on individual health outcomes. It was a complex and detailed study covering a number of years.

I will briefly summarize some of their findings. Health care costs have been rising faster than our national economy, consuming a larger share of both government budgets as well as family budgets. This has a direct impact on employer-sponsored insurance and Medicare-Medicaid. Individual health policies not only are difficult to obtain because of insurance company restrictions, but have priced many families out completely. 

The percent of Americans obtaining coverage through their workplace is falling and fewer workers are even offered health insurance. As premiums rise, many employers opt to replace full timers with part time employees, thus no longer covering their health insurance. Unfortunately, too many people who feel they have affordable health insurance discover when a serious illness occurs, they are simply not covered. Happens all the time. I won’t review the effect of pre-existing conditions, which exclude innumerable people. Many of the medical reasons for the exclusion are quite minor.

Here’s a direct quote from the study: “Coverage matters. On average, uninsured Americans get about half the preventive services and medical care that insured Americans receive. Studies have shown that uninsured people with cancer, heart disease, stroke, lung diseases, and other conditions are more likely to have poor health and to die prematurely than similar people with coverage. Existing safety-net services are insufficient to overcome the gap between those who have health insurance and those who do not. The economic consequences of a lack of insurance are equally grim. If even one family member lacks coverage, the entire family is exposed to the financial burden of severe illness or injury. In 2009, 20% of uninsured adults used up all or most of their savings paying medical bills.”

The bottom line is despite the fact that any proposed bill, which will be able to pass, will be far from perfect and will not solve all our health care problems, the consequences of inaction and keeping the status quo will be much, much worse for the medical and financial welfare of our citizens. Predicted disasters when health care reform is set in place simply will not happen. They didn't happen with Social Security or Medicare, and they won't happen now. Keeping health care unchanged-that will be the real disaster for our citizens!