Chad Whiteley and Bob Walker

Supply and Demand, Freedom of Choice

Chad Whiteley/Lake Isabella The United States of America is the greatest place on God’s green earth. Even when it comes to health care, our country provides a quality that is unknown in the rest of the world. We have the best doctors, the best scientists, and the best hospitals in the world. Seventy percent of Nobel Prizes in medicine come from the United States, and five of the six greatest advancements in medicine over the past 25 years have come from America. Yet, we have a broken system through which this quality is provided. We simply do not provide the best care to many people, but spend the most money in the industrialized world receiving these poor results. Nevertheless, if we simply pay for everyone’s coverage, we increase demand without fixing supply. We must ensure that we have a system that expands the supply of medical services; thus, reducing the marginal cost of providing such services.

It does not take much scrutiny to realize the fact that our system needs a overhaul. Over the last 10 years, health care costs have more than doubled. As an employee in Kern County, I understand the frustration that has been reflected in recent town hall meetings. My employer selects my health care plan for me, and the health care plan selects my doctors. I am often forced to drive to Bakersfield to obtain care from my plan. I should be able to select a plan that better meets my needs. Unfortunately, Americans like me do not have freedom to choose between health care plans. My wife is diabetic, so we do not qualify for most private insurance plans. I am forced to accept whatever insurance the employer offers. Health insurance companies basically function as a monopoly. Insurance companies are able to charge anything they want, making corporate executives wealthy at the expense of customers. We need a consistent and fair market that allows everyone the ability to afford coverage. Americans should be able to choose which health care provider they trust. The freedom to choose creates better competition, fosters high quality care, and lowers costs to levels that are fair to every American.

Let me share some common sense ideas to start the cost-cutting process flowing. Bringing accountability to the current programs would save billions of dollars. Medicaid wastes at least $32 billion a year in improper payments. Medicare fraud costs taxpayers $60 billion annually. Imagine a world where government programs would be run transparently and held to account by taxpayers.  Instead of blindly cutting $500 billion from Medicare, as the current HR 3200 seeks to accomplish, we can rationally save through oversight and proper management. We should also reduce government handouts to wealthier Americans. Retirees that make over $170,000 a year should pay a little more for their Medicare benefits than a retiree who makes much less. Physicians believe that the United States needs tort reform to properly address the rising cost of health care. One national study, done by the Pacific Research Institute, showed that America wastes $589 billion on excessive lawsuits. Eliminating this waste would give at least 2.3 million more Americans access to affordable health insurance coverage.

We must work towards a comprehensive solution in which universal access to affordable health care is guaranteed for all Americans. This can be accomplished at a very limited cost to the federal government by giving people control of their own health care plan choices. The federal government should give tax rebates to every American to use for health care. Insurers should be required to offer coverage to any individual regardless of patient age or health history. Several European countries have adopted a system where non-profit, independent boards penalize insurance companies that cherry pick healthy patients and reward companies that seek patients with preexisting conditions. This solution ensures that health insurers compete on superior product and lowest price. We also need a simple auto-enrollment system. Allow individuals to select plans not only through their employers, but also through the hospital, or even the DMV. Research has shown that these auto-enrollment mechanisms obtain near universal levels of coverage.

President Reagan said, “[G]overnment isn’t the solution to the problem, it is the problem.” We should not be seeking a solution that replaces the current monopolistic system with a monopolistic government. Instead, we should be seeking fiscally responsible reform that gives individuals more choices. It is the American way to guarantee freedom for all from the strong arm of government.

Some Real Issues in Our Our Health Situation

Bob Walker/Wofford Heights Folks of the valley, whatever your point of view on the current health care debate, I think you will all agree on the following:

The same kids are going to break their arm or get sick next year no matter what health care plan we have. The same men and women are going to get cancer next year, have heart attacks, colon disease, etc. There is not going to be one less medical problem next year for the citizens of the USA.

Many of our citizens have no, or little, or lousy or have been denied health care. Our local doctors commented on that Aug. 24 at the Senior Center. We had the best health care in the world in the 1950s. Now we are ranked 37th in the world. That’s a fact. Let’s fix it. If 36 other countries can do it, can’t the great America fix it too?

Instead of trying to avoid it, let’s consider how a country like France developed the best health care system in the world, while we slipped to number 37. Let’s see what they do that we could also do. They spend only seven percent of Gross National Product (GNP) for health care for all their citizens, that is the best in the world. We spend 17 percent of our GNP yet we’re the 37th worst in the world and not everyone is covered.

Part of answer is very simple, money-saving accounting. Every French citizen has a heavily encrypted health card. They go to their doctor and give him the card, and he swipes it in his computer. Instantly he is looking at their entire health record! They tell him that their shoulder, which was broken 30 years ago, is starting to hurt a lot. Their doctor recommends a specialist, and also gives them a prescription. They walk out of the doctor’s office and three buildings down to the pharmacy, and give the card to the pharmacist who fills the prescription he sees written on the computer by their doctor a few minutes before.

Both the doctor and pharmacy must be paid in three days by the government. Patient billing is zero. The amount of billing done by doctor and pharmacist is zero. The patient sees a specialist the next day.

The doctor not only has no accountant, he has one drawer in his desk for billing. That idea alone would save us four to five percent, according to our local doctors. The idea of no accounting for doctors and pharmacists would be easy to do. Just license the French software!

Secondly, with the card, if you suffered a sudden injury and were unconscious from a heart attack, car accident, etc., the EMT could swipe your card and know what drugs you might be on before they administered any more that might complicate the issue. They also could email your card information to the Emergency ward that would then be totally ready for you when you arrived. That would save a lot of lives and money also.

I’m asking people to realize how terrible our system has become. We need to admit we have fallen to number 37 and it stinks. We need to admit that the private insurance companies are at the heart of the problem. (Blue Cross used to be non profit-like some of the foreign ones.)

Then tell your legislators to fix some of the things in it. Remembering that most of that slip to number 37 has come in the last 25 years when the “Big Pharma” became the second largest political contributor to both parties.

Kevin McCarthy is totally against any change. Senator Boxer wants to fix the system, and Senator Feinstein is waffling. All three have vastly better health care than we do. It is up to us. Get out your pen and write. Blogging to this paper is good and fun, but our legislators don’t read it. Send them a letter. Several letters. Their staff actually do read and tally the for and against tally of letters they receive.

In his just published book, Looking Overseas for Healing of America, T. R. Reid explains what happened when the shoulder he broke in the US Navy and had successfully fixed for free by the VA started hurting 35 years later.

He sought answers in six very different health care systems: the USA, Britain, France, Switzerland, Japan and India. He got very different answers. The Americans wanted to cut his old shoulder out and put an artificial one in at an astronomical cost. The Brits told him that at his advance age they really did not want to do surgery, but a stiff upper lip and pain pills would get him along. The French told him they could relieve the stainless bolt in his shoulder and do therapy and it would cost him nothing. The Swiss would also do some surgery to relieve the bolt and there would be small co-pay. The Japanese would give him anything he wanted, free. The Indians suggest he try some age old treatments they have used for centuries that are forms of physical therapy. I won’t spoil his book and tell you which one he chose, but it worked. And it cost either very little or nothing. (The U.S. option was out.)