My Opinion of the Public Health Care Option

It was to be a way that health care could be made affordable and available to all citizens at their level of ability to pay. Turning no one away, whether due to premium or pre-existing condition, this plan would have be available for everyone at a cost that their standard of living could afford and that they would be able to pay for.

It stands to reason that if you are currently living at or below the poverty level, you are probably eligibly or receiving federal and state funded Medicaid. If for some reason you have been determined to be disabled early in life or are of retirement age you are covered by Medicare, a federal insurance program. And there are those of you would are lucky enough to be employed by companies that either offer you insurance at a discounted premium or cover the total cost of the premium for you as part of your benefits package. Now days you are lucky just to be employed.

The proposed government option would not affect any of these people. There are thousands of you that purchase your insurance through private companies and you would not be mandated to make any changes to your current insurance. The government option would not affect most people currently insured to state it bluntly.

The people that would benefit most from a government option plan are those who are self-employed, employed by companies not providing coverage options, individuals that can't afford the outrageous premiums of going it alone to purchase insurance and individuals denied coverage based on pre-existing conditions.

I will be the first to say that the healthcare issue is not a simple one, but that does not mean that it is one we should back down from correcting the wrongs and making it work better. When you set down a clean set of objectives it's much easier to see that offering a government ran (not funded) insurance program makes the most sense.

The goals that everyone can agree that need to be met for the healthcare success of our country as a united body are:

1. United coverage (for all citizens)

2. Cost reduction in health care practices and services

3. A re-vamping of the malpractice laws and guidelines.

4. Placing safe guards in place to ensure that the government run program does not increase the deficient.

United coverage can be achieved through a government ran program that groups all the individual citizens that file for coverage together and provide lower premiums because there are a larger group of insures.

People have expressed concern that a government ran health care organization would put private insurance companies out of business. Well nothing could be farther from the truth. If anything, the government option should provide incentives to the private sector to offer their clients the best possible coverage's for the most reasonable rates. There is no need for fear that a government ran health care option would drive private sector insurance companies under. Has the USPS put UPS or FedEx out of business?

It should be looked at as a system of checks and balances. If your private insurance company is providing the best coverage at the most affordable rate, they should have no fear of losing clients to the government plan because these individuals are already receiving the best possible coverage for the best possible price correct?

I think if the uninsured were able to purchase coverage that is available to every member of the house and the senate, being treated as group policy coverage, we could achieve total coverage for our citizens. The way I see it, those who have coverage are not concerned for those without. But what they are failing to see is that by having all these citizens without coverage they end up footing the cost in the end. Through increased premiums and deductibles and lower coverage's, the system will cover itself.

These additional fees stem from thousands of uninsured citizens going to emergency rooms for treatment that they would otherwise go to a regular doctor if they had insurance. They know that hospitals will not turn them away, regardless of their ability to pay, they will receive treatment. That unpaid treatment ends up being written off by the facility as bad debit. This gets passed back down in higher cost that the facility has to charge to recover the loss. This in turn ends up being higher premiums and deductibles that you pay to your insurance company because of the higher charges begin passed along to them by the facilities. So you see, in the end we all pay for the uninsured. It may not come in the form of a tax levied by the government but you still pay.

Now if that same individual had health insurance through a government plan, they could seek medical treatment at a doctor's office at a much cheaper rate and could even prevent other complications by delaying receiving treatment.

If you think that by not backing a government sponsored health care plan you are escaping the cost of covering the uninsured through taxes you are truly mistaken. You cover the uninsured with higher premiums, higher co-pays and higher deductibles.

The government options was a starting point to get coverage to all Americans, but it seems some Americans don't think all Americans deserve health care in one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Everyone that opposes the government healthcare option should sit and ask themselves what are the rational reasons they could give for not supporting a program that would provide coverage to thousands of Americans without health insurance and then see if the reasons are selfish ones or serious rational reason, with long lasting negative effects on the country as a whole.