Health Insurance Debate

From where I sit I see a number of problems with our current health care system:

1. the strain, and associated cost, indigents put on emergency medical care,
2. the large percentage of health care dollars that go into administrating health insurance (some say it is 20%),
3. the lack of communication of health care records between various medical facilities, and
4. the conflict between the sympathetic who say we should help the unfortunate and the hard liners who say we should let them shift for themselves.

If you want to get to the root of the problem, do what they do on police shows: follow the money. In this case it looks like the insurance companies. They have a good deal going, raking a fat cut off the top of a gazillion dollars every year. I think there is a possibility that we might somehow- cut the skimming down to a reasonable level.

The other big problem is the conflict between the "take care of sick and injured who can't care for themselves", and the "let them die in the streets" mentality of the hard liners. Some people can't afford health insurance, or won't buy it, and don't have any money. When they get sick or injured and need help, they go to the emergency room, or call 911. There is a part of our society/civilization that says you can't turn someone away who really needs help. And who gets stuck with the tab? The taxpayers. I suspect it would be cheaper in the long run to provide these people with free health care so they don't get so sick that they end up in the emergency room, where costs are ten times what they are in a doctor's office. So in reality it's a matter of pay me now or pay me later. The insurance companies are working to force as much of the cost of health care onto the taxpayers as they can, while they skim the cream off the top of every working stiff's paycheck.

As for medical records, privacy is all very well, but having multiple versions of my medical records scattered all over town doesn't really impress me as a good solution. A central database would be better. God forbid the government should have access to it (whoops, I let a little sarcasm creep in), but I would hope it could cut down on the number of pages on the forms one fills out every time you go to a different doctor. Yes, it might also cut down on your supply of Oxycontin, but hey, everyone needs to suffer a little.