Politically Acceptable

Recently Mercury News published an editorial excoriating Senator Sheila Kuehl for diverting attention away from more "politically acceptable" healthcare plans.

Yeah, Senator Kuehl! Why are you wasting California’s time proposing something that would be truly universal, when good “politically acceptable” legislation like “mandatory insurance-based plans” or “market-based plans” are still available?

Sure California currently has 19% uninsured versus the U.S. average of 16% uninsured (1), but why should that be of interest to anyone? The insurance companies have a vital role to play in any of these “politically reasonable” plans. Of course the minor, teeny tiny problem with plans like Scwarzenneger’s is that it requires the federal government to kick in some money, and that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon (2).

Senator Kuehl, when you divert precious resources from the real debate you only hurt people. Like the 2,500 Californians who currently die each year due to lack of healthcare coverage (3). If there was a way to help just a small percentage of those people by a convoluted, unenforceable mandatory insurance plan versus helping all of them by a universal plan, I can’t think of a more noble goal! Rational market friendly plans like Bush’s may actually cover up to 7% of the estimated 45 million uninsured in the U.S.! Isn’t that good enough?

And besides, market-based plans and private insurance plans are simply more “American”! What could be more fiscally conservative and “politically reasonable” than paying nearly twice as much for healthcare than the Swiss but having a healthcare system which ranks overall #37 among OECD countries in terms of overall quality and access? Personally I will always buy a GM car versus a Toyota since I know that when I buy a GM I can pay $1500 extra to cover health care coverage as opposed to just $400 extra for a Toyota. Americans always pay a premium for “value” (4)

Oh sure there are critics out there who will say “Why don’t we enact single-payer universal healthcare and then let everyone in the state take $1 out of every $3 and set fire to it and it works out the same?” (6) They are too busy tokin’ it up in the ivory towers to know what us REAL Americans like. Us real Americans are the most well-informed technically savvy shoppers the world has ever seen (despite that fact that according to a 2005 Harris poll 25% believe in homeopathic medicine, and 27% of us believe in witches), maybe that’s why for our annual outlay of over $4000/person we live, on average, 5% shorter than those suckers in Japan who only pay $1800/person per year. A lot of us are probably born under an “unhealthy star sign” and we don’t get to the local witch in time to get a cure.

Besides, what’s wrong with keeping the insurance companies in the loop? Really? Sure in 2005 the top 10 CEO’s of health care companies raked in a paultry $141 million dollars, and the top paid executive in this lot was Wm. McGuire of United Health Group with a small compensation package of more than $37 million (7). I wonder if he worries about his healthcare deductible? I mean there is no way that money would be available unless the companies were helping the general public really really well! But then they should be making lots of money…in 2006 the cost of healthcare coverage in the U.S. vastly outpaced average income and increased about twice the rate of inflation (8)! That’s just good bizness.

And talk about good bizness! Good business means managing your risk. Insurance companies are experts at that. As more people are forced to individual insurance plans some will get to face the inevitable denial for such egregious life-style choices as “being a fireman” or “working as a police officer” (9). But these folks had to know that before they decided to do something as irresponsible as that. Oh wait…no they didn’t. They were systematically denied full and easy access to that information! Oh well. Live ‘n learn! At least under the Schwazenegger plan the insurance companies will be in charge of establishing costs for healthcare.

Now we all know that currently there’s a mandatory automobile insurance system here in California and look how well that works to cover everyone? Sure about 25% of Californians don’t currently bother to carry said “mandated” insurance, but then they never get in auto accidents either. I’m sure the same will happen when healthcare insurance is mandated too!

So Bravo to the San Jose Mercury News for standing up to Senator Kuehl’s tactics of attempting to divert attention away from the real topic: politically feasible semi-universal coverage that helps maintain gross inefficiencies and out of control overhead costs!