Health care? Shmealth care...

I’m back. Welcome to a special political addition of my blog. Those of you who truly know me, have talked to me at any time, or have been around me for any significant about of time probably know where this is going. Yes, I’m a Texan. I’m also a Catholic. I am a member of the Republican Party (that includes donating money, attending events, and voting Republican). Depending on your political point of view, I’ve been described as moderately conservative by some and rabidly conservative by others. This does not mean I am a close minded puppet or pundit, for I have several friends whose views differ from my own and I appreciate every time I get to have a discussion with them. Hell, I dated a Democrat, during an election year! But, none of this really means much without there being an issue. Because, only when a discussion is to be had or a topic is to be discussed is there a need to label oneself with a political party. So what are the pressing issues of today? Jobs and job development? National security and immigration reform? Yes, these are issues, but I’m going to be discussing health care, health insurance, and the reform of these. Why, because it seems that Washington can get nothing else done until this is done. I won’t go into the issues I have with the fact that the current administration is so stuck on this, that’s a whole other discussion.

I’m writing this on Sunday afternoon, the day of a crucial vote that could bring Democratic “health care” reform into law. Oh, where to begin…let’s start with why I put the words health care into parenthesis. Because, in spite of what the majority of supporters of this bill outside the capital believe, this is not health care reform. If you have read any part of the bill, then you know it is more health insurance “reform”. Oh, wait, parenthesis again…let’s because they are not trying to reform the health insurance industry, they are trying to regulate. When I say regulate, I mean regulate hard. Health care reform would indicate that they are trying in some way to create government run health care through a single-payer system, similar to Canada, or they are trying to reduce the cost of health care itself, either by subsidizing citizens premiums or regulating health care providers’ pricing. This bill has some of the latter and a great deal of framework for the former, but it isn’t completely either. Thus, you are not getting your grand “health care reform” but more of a stepping stone toward it. Just think, we can be going through these intense political debates and partisanship for the next two and a half years while they try to get the rest of the steps passed. Yeay!

Since I’ve cleared that up, I can hit on the next thing that is bugging me about this. No one understands what they are getting. No American really knows what this bill is going to do or what it is intended for. Because we depend on supposedly unbiased news agencies and extremely biased political figures to get a look at what’s happening in Congress, we are only getting bits and pieces. But, mostly we are getting the party line. The Democrats, who don’t want their constituents to know that this bill’s changes will not be immediate and at this point doesn’t involve a single-payer system (which most of them are expecting), are keeping their mouths shut about exactly what the bill is. They want their supporters to believe once the bill is passed we will have health care like Canada, but this bill is nothing like the Canadian or even the European health care systems. The Democratic Party line is, “this is exactly what ya’ll want, so support it.” The Republicans on the other hand, want to draw on the fear of many conservatives that the government is going to get too big, that taxes are going to increase, that health care costs will continue to increase, and, yes, this is the beginning of socialism in the United States. Ok, I agree that some of these may actually be true, not to the extreme that Obama is trying to make a socialist state, but in my opinion as an economist, health care and taxes will increase due to this bill. Anyway, what I was saying is that the Republicans are using pundits to spread some level or fear and anger over the bill in order to create a more vocal right. Either way you look at it, most Americans have become misinformed about this bill and are letting this misinformation sway their thoughts and feelings. Don’t be fooled, do your own research (as much as you can with all the biased information out there) and make a more logical decision.

I will not go on much further except as to say what I think should be going on, in more somewhat informed, but still greatly misinformed, opinion. If the Democrats wanted to pass health care reform, to ease the burden of insurance on the populace, they should have done a more gradual step-by-step approach. Think of it like the war in the Pacific during the Second World War Though attacking the Japanese mainland head-on right after Pearl Harbor would have been heroic, it would have completely decimated an already shaken military. Just like trying to pass one huge bill up front has been crippling the American legislative system including both parties (more closely Democrats). The Army Air Corps after Pearl Harbor knew the American people wanted revenge, so they launched a no win attack on the Japanese mainland as a show of our resolve, but in no way did they expect to win the war with that (most of you have seen the movie Pearl Harbor, the last third of that movie was about that raid). Other Democrats and even a couple Republicans have launched the health care reform debate before, but when realizing it was a no win, dropped it (see Bill Clinton). So during the war, the United States military realized that in order to defeat Japan, an island hopping strategy of pushing the enemy back incrementally was needed. Step-by-step, island-by-island, we pushed the Japanese all the way back to the mainland Japan where either a US led invasion or the use of the atomic bomb would have ended war with Japan. I think if Democrats, or any law maker for that matter, would have been smart enough to call the Republican bluff of starting from scratch and had broken up the bill into smaller, more focused parts that could been debated and passed faster (as well as implemented faster), they may have had greater success. As a Republican there are parts of this bill that address issues with health insurance that I would like to fix, the bill goes about it a ridiculous way (because it is set up to create single-payer health care in the future). FDR, a Democrat, was smart enough to agree with military strategy makers in order to win the war in the Pacific. How come current Democratic policy makers are not smart enough to work this same direction?

On a final note, though I agree with social justice according to the tenets of Christianity, I am not in favor of government funded, tax funded, or government run health care/insurance. We have a law that supports social justice due to health care in which no hospital can turn away a patient in critical need of care. For you Bible thumpers out there check out 2 Thessalonians 3:10-13. Appealing isn’t it. Consider how government has been able to control costs in other industries over the years and think what could be done through simple regulation to lower health care costs. Of what need would government health care be? Or, dare I say it, what if the government focused on stimulating the economy and job creation instead of trying to just appease the so-called masses with government health care? With jobs, people would be able to afford health care, or be on companies’ health insurance, which would make the situation void. Food for thought, but only you can decide where you stand on this issue. Like I said, be intelligent about it and inform yourselves. Then come to the public forum and speak your piece.