Two items on the Politico web site have been brought to my attention. RichardH told me about the story Exclusive: RNC document mocks donors, plays on ‘fear’. MoveOn.org told me about the story NRCC orders ‘Project Code Red’.
The common factor in these two items is the plan of the Republicans to stir up as much fear as possible as a way of combating President Obama’s and the Democrats’ legislative agenda.
To oppose the Republicans we could stir up fear of what will happen if the Republicans are successful with their fear strategy. I’d prefer not to fight fear with fear (pun intended).
It is now time to shift the health care reform debate to the positive vision of what will happen when it passes.
As the plan starts to take affect and particularly as it progresses, there will be a lot of transformations in our society. Once we lift the cost burden of health care from our citizens, our industry, and our government, the United States will become more competitive in the world economy. The pressure to outsource jobs will be diminished.
Moreover, new businesses will be started by the entrepreneurs who have been held back by the fear of leaving their families’ health care uninsured. There are a significant number of highly creative people who are clinging to their jobs in big business because their families need the security of employer provided health insurance. This is particularly true of families with pre-existing health problems. Before I retired, I was one of those people who feared leaving the cocoon of big business.
You keep hearing that small business is the major driver of employment growth in our economy. Let us just pretend that we believe this old saw. Not only will entrepreneurs be freed from their fear for their own families, but they will also be freed from the difficulty of providing health insurance coverage for the people they want to hire.
The economy will get such a shot in the arm (another pun intended) from the new health care regime, that tax revenues will increase enough to repay the cost of the stimulus borrowing that was needed to get the economy rolling again.
The current 40% increases that you hear about from health insurance companies will no longer be needed. As the health insurance costs go up, people who can make the trade off that they are healthy enough to risk going without insurance start to drop their insurance. This makes the cost of insurance go up for the people who are still buying it. As some of these people without insurance do have unanticipated health problems, many will get emergency care that they will not be able to pay for. This cost to the emergency care providers gets tacked on to the overhead costs that they charge their paying patients who have insurance.
When health insurance costs are made reasonable, people and employers will be able to afford to buy insurance. This will spread out the risk and lower the costs. The cost of uncompensated care provided by emergency medical providers will be practically eliminated if everyone is insured. So another driver of rising health care costs will be stopped.
When the health care cost inflation is tamed, Medicare will be able to afford to pay what the health care providers need in order to stay in business. This will eliminate the problem of these providers turning away patients who are on Medicare because they cannot afford to treat them.
The research into innovative methods of providing health care which will be promoted by the health insurance reform plan will make our health care system even better.
Why would anybody want to turn down a plan with so much to offer?
I hope people notice that the above posting does not contain a diatribe against the evil insurance companies hiking their rates by 40%. To the contrary, I am buying their explanation for the increase. What I was implying was that the health insurance industry needs this health care bill as much as anybody else.
The loss of customers because of increased price and the consequent need to increase prices more is truly a death spiral for the health insurance industry. This bill is needed to rescue them from this death spiral.
If this bill fails to pass and the spiral does continue, we might end up with a single payer health insurance in the end anyway. The private health insurance companies will become a shadow of their former selves and the government will be forced to step in to make up the difference.
This might actually be a desirable outcome were it not for the great pain that people will have to endure before we get there to the final destination. If this is eventually the final destination, there has to be a less painful way to get there. The current bill relieves the pain. It does not force us nor does it prevent us from going to a single payer system if we so choose to do so in the future