3 Principles that can bring us together for meaningful healthcare reform

The usual discussion about health care reform often resembles a food fight in middle school. Insults pass for argument, and facts get ignored or selectively presented only when they bolster one's opinion. What would it look like if we talked about what we all truly care about. Could we have a different discussion?

When I have discussed this issue with others in my community, there are 3 important principles that seem to ring true with most of us.

First, we need to invest  in "us" and the future we want to build. If we envision America as a successful land of opportunity, it means that we need a healthy workforce, able to compete and healthy students able to learn new skills. Our investment now in an equitable system that allows that to happen is simply a requirement needed to  make it so! This future will not happen by accident, and our failure to act now will doom our next generation to a future much different than we would like for them.

Secondly, we must end waste! It makes no sense to spend money on treatments that do not heal, or on complicated paper work that drives up costs. Fraud must be eliminated. Research on how to improve care must be supported, and the public should see the benefits!

Finally,  we need to end cost shifting, and share the burden fairly. Medical pricing today makes no sense. The cash paying person is charged the most. Hospitals overcharge for some things to pay for what is not covered. Some people get a tax break on insurance and some do not. A healthy society needs every one to be covered, and the cost must be affordable for all, or our society will remain broken and care will remain out of reach for many.

Guess which country in the graph below has the worst health care statistics

You will often here the opponents of health care reform say that costs are increasing all over the world, and not just here at home. As the graph above makes clear, the costs of US health care are rising much faster than anywhere on the planet. In 2009, health insurance companies made their largest profits in history, and still dealt out staggering premium increases. And after all of this. some people are still scared of some government regulation? We are a nation of suckers!

One reason medical care is so expensive: We All pay a Hidden Tax

Those of us who currently have private health insurance pay a "hidden tax", included in our premiums, to pay for costs incurred by those without coverage. A new study now calculates that cost to be $1,017.00 per family in 2008, which is in addition to the actual taxes paid to support Medicaid and other government programs.

In 2008, the uninsured received $116 billion worth of care from hospitals, doctors, and other providers, which was usually provided for emergencies that could no longer be ignored. Those costs had to be paid for somehow, and they were covered in the following ways:

• On average, the uninsured themselves paid for more 37 percent of the total costs of the care they received.
  
• Government programs and charities, paid for another 26 percent of that care.
• The rest, approximately $42.7 billion in 2008, was unpaid (So called "uncompensated care").

To cover the rest of this "uncompensated care", the cost was shifted to private insurers by charging more for health services. These charges then result in the higher premiums we all pay. In 2008 the extra charge for family health care coverage was $1,017.00 and for a single person was $368.00.

The next time you here someone bemoan "increased taxes" to pay for health care reform, remember the truth. We need to get rid of the tax we already bear, and substitute a planned system that actually gets people in for needed care before things fall apart, thereby saving us all money.

Click here to read a full copy of the report.