Democracy is coming to the USA...

The Health Care debate is interesting to watch from the perspective of seeing so many interest groups collide against each other.

Radical Democrats rail against the Health Insurance companies, harnessing (justifiable) populist anger and channeling it into political support. Meanwhile Radical Republicans are violently opposing it, with murmurs of Hitler comparisons and violence bubbling up amongst their supporters.

Both of these positions aren't based on anything principled, merely attempts to harness populist anger into political support. My statement that these statements are not principled is that most of the Radical opposition is based on fanciful claims and that the Health Care reform that the Radical anti-health insurance industry Democrats supports is basically a bail-out for the insurance companies, excepting only the "Public option."

The Health insurance industry is enthusiastically for "health care reform", as long the public option is nixed. This extremely corporate friendly reform is billed by some as a blow against Big Business and by others as a Marxist take over. It is neither.

I think this article illustrates the true nature of Health care reform: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/healthcare/la-na-healthcare-insurers24-2009aug24,0,6925890.story

Musings on Health Care

The Pharmaceutical industry is often a target of populist scorn, but rarely is it mentioned in mainstream conversation that one of their main sources of power is a government created monopoly: a patent. With the elimination of the patent system the cost of all patented products would decrease dramatically as competition exploded. Medicine would become cheaper, health care costs would go down.

It sounds absurd (to some) to say it aloud, but our government has taken direct action, through regulation, to increase doctor's pay by creating an artificial shortage of providers. Largely done at the behest of the AMA, these regulations, if removed, would allow qualified professionals from other countries to practice in the US, as well as more people being able to become doctors. The number of providers would go up, the cost of health care would go down.

Under the current tax code, under an apparent attempt to stave off socialism (boo! hiss!), employers are given tax incentives to offer health care to the employees. This ties people to their employer for health insurance. Health insurance is then a commodity where the person who actually uses it is not involved in the choosing of the finer details. An agreement is reached between the employer and a health insurance carrier, and the employee is given some options, A B or C, for example. Removal of these incentives would give more consumer choice for health insurance, and the decreased cost of health care would decrease entry cost into health insurance, leading to more companies. All of this together would lead to a more de-centralized health care industry, as well as a more equitable one.

It goes without saying this is a very complex topic, and these are simply some brief thoughts on the matter.