Fixing the Health Care System
by admin | October 18, 2008 | In Government, Health care | No Comments
Heath care is important to most families, but very few practice it in their lives. Most of us wait until there is a problem before we visit the doctor’s office (or worse – go to the hospital). Men are probably some of the worst culprits out there. If it was a car, I bet things would be different. Universal health care is NOT the answer. Personal responsibility is the only way to make health care work.
See, with our cars, the everyday wear and tear isn’t covered by insurance. If we don’t want to spend big money on new brakes, a new transmission, new tires, or a new automobile altogether, we take care of the car daily. We take it to have the oil changed. The tires get rotated and balanced. The water level is checked and maintained.
Our bodies aren’t nearly as lucky. We push them and abuse them until they call for a time out with colds or hurt muscles and joints or something worse. If we treated our cars this way, no one would expect the government to come in and make it better.
On the flip side of this issue are the medical care professionals. Many of the doctors in the system today are there because someone told them they were smart and this profession was a way to use that intelligence to make money. It’s not all about caring for their patients.
Some of them have even adjusted their care to what the insurance will and will not pay. If the insurance won’t pay extra for a follow up visit (and the doctor will have to “eat” the cost) then he just doesn’t schedule a follow up visit. It doesn’t matter what is best for the patient – it is all about the bottom line.
Keeping with the earlier analogy, if I take my car to the mechanic up the road, he will fiddle with the car until he gets it right (and he doesn’t charge me extra for the privilege of getting my car fixed). I had to search long and hard for this mechanic because they don’t all work to the same standard. But he gets all of my business, plus as much business and I can send his way.
I also looked long and hard for a doctor that would take time to talk with me about my concerns or needs instead of herding me through the office like a herd of cattle. If my insurance didn’t cover his practice then I would pay the extra to still go there. I want a doctor that is as concerned with preventing issues in my body as he is with getting my insurance money.
So what is the answer? Hilary Clinton recently released a health plan that requires everyone to have health insurance. This isn’t the answer. The answer is to take health insurance BACK to what it was intended to be (insurance against catastrophic costs) and pay for the rest ourselves. If people had to pay for emergency room visits, there would be less people in the waiting room with simple colds.
More government involvement will not help. Personal responsibility will be the only way we can fix the health care system in America.