The stupid debate over national health insurance
You will lose your private health insurance plan. I am not referring to the result of any mandate imposed by some radical national health care plan.
I am just telling you what you already know.
Your employer is going to change your health insurance plan. Your old plan is going to disappear. It happens every year to millions of people.
Your insurance provider is changed by your company. Your annual premiums increase. You suddenly have to make co-pays every time you visit a doctor. The deductibles skyrocket, meaning maybe $3,000 out of your own pocket before your health insurance plan pays anything.
And chances are no one is going to ask your opinion. It’s just going to happen.
If you’re lucky, you may be offered a menu of options to replace the old plan. You probably won’t comprehend any of them. You will be grateful that you still have some form of health insurance in case your children are in an accident or your spouse gets cancer.
Yet, despite all that, every time Democratic presidential candidates debate national health care someone whines, “But what about the millions of Americans who like their private health insurance plans? Are you just going to take that away?”
How about asking that question to private employers? Make them promise that they will not take away the health care plans of their workers.
And while you are at it, make employers cover the costs of prescription drugs. Or at least guarantee that the drugs people take will not be eliminated from the approved list provided by some insurance company. That’s not going to happen.
“The government is going to tax middle class people for the cost of health insurance,” is the standard criticism of national health care.
Well, we all pay for health insurance right now. We just don’t get any say in what that insurance covers and no guarantee that it will be there for us next year. In the meantime, we’re paying ever higher premiums.
I understand why people are scared by national health insurance.
I get why no one wants to pay for it. Certainly not the private companies that employ millions of people and no longer provide health insurance like they did 20 years ago. They’re making money because health insurance is no longer a standard benefit.
Among those who still provide job-based plans, the average annual deductible has increased by more than $1,300 a year in the last 12 years.
Between 2005 and 2018, a Kaiser Family Foundation survey found premiums increased 55%, twice as fast as employee wages.
That isn’t going to stop. And if your company merges with another and eliminates workers to save money, well, good luck to the unemployed trying to find another job with health insurance. Good luck to those still on the job who may no longer have health insurance.
You know all this already. If you like it, do nothing and nothing will change.
People seem to have forgotten that popular support for Obamacare came out of the Great Recession. Actually, it was building steadily for nearly a decade before that.
Major American companies began moving their plants overseas. They didn’t have to pay workers in China nearly as much money and they didn’t have to provide health insurance.
When the Great Recession hit, to keep their doors open many businesses eliminated health insurance coverage. They just couldn’t afford the premiums. American taxpayers, who were bailing out the banks and Wall Street brokers, were happy just to keep their jobs.
Insurance companies, making billions of dollars, decided not to insure people who were really sick. It was the smart business move. That’s how this health care revolution started.
Politicians know all this. But they play to the fears of the general public. They don’t trust you. But you know the truth about private health insurance. It’s up to you to make things better for your countrymen and future generations.