…despite what you think right now about it. Pick your situation, then jump to the blurb that’s about your reason.
1. You are employed full time with (what you feel like) is great employer-paid insurance.
2. You are a senior citizen on medicare or social security.
3. You are an independent contractor or small business owner.
4. You are a student or unemployed.
5. You run a major corporation (not a health insurance corporation).
1. You are employed and have insurance. Good for you. You have coverage, you can go into the doctor when you want, and aside from a pesky co-pay, you can walk out of that hospital having been taken care of. So why would you ever care if someone else wasn’t covered? Simple. Your bank account is why. How much do you make? How big have your raises been over the past 10 years? Not quite what you were hoping for, most likely…that’s the case for most people today. Companies cite “rising costs are causing us to cut back our holiday bonuses this year” or “cut back on raises” or “pay freeze” or “hiring freezes”…whatever. Those things generally either cause you to work more for less pay, or prevent your salary from keeping up with average living increases. What are those mysterious “rising costs” they talk about? Well, a really huge one is that health insurance you’re so happy with. See, the health insurance industry has raised premiums for everyone, consistently, even though more people every year pay into that same pot. The guys running the health care industry feel like they’re doing such a good job providing you with such winning insurance that they feel like THEY should have yearly raises that are roughly 200% higher than the average increase for standard of living. In fact, the head of United Healthcare, one of the largest players out there, felt like he did such a good job that he raised rates for their massive base of customers, then he gave himself a BILLION DOLLAR BONUS. And we thought those Wall Street bank CEOs were draining the pot. Nope, that one billion came out of money you paid into the pot for coverage. The larger that pot gets, the lower the premiums should be. There’s more in there to cover everyone…right? Unless the guy managing the pot decides to drain ONE BILLION DOLLARS out of it. And that’s not counting all the other board members “getting theirs while the getting’s good”. AKA, robbing your health dollars and tricking you into thinking that it’s the “economy’s fault”. If your HEALTH CARE company was buying up mortgage backed derivatives, then it’s their own damn fault and there is government money (that you also paid for) that should be there to take care of that.
But why do you care? You have health coverage…it’s all good, right? Well, your employer may not feel that way, and to offset those rising costs, they’re taking it out of your future. Your bonuses, your perks, your salary. You’re feeling the crunch as much as anyone else, and you don’t even know it. No properly regulated (outside of the military, which isn’t properly regulated) government agency could run insurance as poorly as the insurance industry has. If they did, the politicians who let that happen would get voted out in favor of reformers willing to make it work. That’s how Medicare has survived for so long and is a far more efficient system. A system designed to care for people who are expensive to cover. Seems like it shouldn’t do as well has it has, huh?
2. I’m a senior citizen on medicare or social security. You’ve done your part to society, paid your dues. You don’t owe anything to these kids! They can fend for themselves, right? Well…maybe not. See, it turns out, that if health costs continue to rise across the board, the next generation might consider trying to deregulate those social programs that are helping you buy heart medication, helping you out when you get sick, and all the other things you rely on to try and enjoy those latter years as much as you can. If health costs continue to blow up, money’s got to be saved somewhere…and Medicare is a program that is expensive. It’s insurance only for those who are expensive to insure. The next generations, just to get by, might get turned on by the notion of tax cuts just like your generation did. And if you’re still around at that point, it’s going to get hard to stick around. On the other side, if the door were opened and people began to see the value in a public option, maybe Medicare could be extended towards everyone. The end result? With all the money focused into one pot, with conceivably less bureaucracy and overhead than an entire health insurance industry all pulling out of that pot, the coverage that Medicare could extend might actually improve. Since the taxes would most likely be tacked on to income tax, and since you’re most likely retired, you’d still have the same setup where the next generation pays in for the most part, but you wouldn’t have to worry about your kids getting sick and having no coverage, then being forced to make you live with them in an extra room instead of in your own place in the retirement community. Or worse, cut you off entirely.
3. You are an independent contractor or small business owner. Either you make a LOT of money (which, considering the economy, is unlikely, but you never know), or you’ve noticed that health care has gotten REALLY expensive. As in, as much as the rent on an apartment. For something that you might use once in a year, you tend to self-medicate, you gamble and hope things “work out”…not a good idea. Your back could go out tomorrow, you could end up being stuck going into the hospital, and what might that cost you? 10 grand? For most people running their own business or consulting, that’s enough to hurt pretty bad. Or maybe you get jobs from time to time, but in-between jobs, you’re not covered. Or you might just be plain sick of paying for health care, only to have your contract end 3 months later and be unable to pay the monthly. The public option was MADE for people like you. It’s so you have an affordable option that doesn’t necessarily require that you be employed, or even in a union, so long as you’re a citizen. The nice thing about that, too, is that by having a fully regulated public insurer that isn’t skimming way more than it should off the top, when you DO get employee based health care in the future, it might actually be cheaper and you may be able to negotiate your wage up a little more effectively. I know from a lot of personal experience that if I ask for what I want for a wage, either a company will take it down by 15% or more, or they’ll just bring me on as a contractor with no health benefits. It’s really those health benefits that are the sticking point.
4. You are a student or unemployed. Again, the public option was made for you. You’re looking for work, but what happens if you get sick? Or in a car accident on the way to the interview? Or you’re a student who gets sick, slips and falls on the way to class, or heck, you see something that well could be a cancerous mole…but you were just dropped from your parent’s health care plan and you’re barely able to pay for your education with your financial aid LET ALONE try and get health coverage. You’re being bankrupted before you even have a chance to contribute to society. What are you going to do? Turn to crime? The bottom line is, none of it ends up well for anyone involved. Having a good public option might open the door to insurance that will cover the unemployed and students without charging them their premium. If you have that many people paying into the pot, and you are keeping the overhead down, you can do that quite easily. After all, these insurance companies seem to be making a fortune with all of this stuff. And you don’t have to become a prostitute, rob a bank, or carjack someone in order to stay alive. If you’ve got kids, then you can take some comfort in knowing that they’ll be taken care of if something goes wrong. That means, they won’t come back to you and force you to make the decision to pay for a 15 thousand dollar operation, or cut them loose and pray for a miracle.
5. You run a major corporation (not a health insurance corporation). Congratulations. You’ve reached the pinnacle of success in this society, and truth be told, you didn’t do it all yourself like the people you pay to tell you that say. You did get a hand from a government that provided roads and transportation to your headquarters, provided a free public education to your employees, provided police and protection so someone else didn’t just come along and knock your sand castle over. But you notice something that’s really annoying…you need to keep your workers healthy, because they’re the ones with the tools that bring in the big bucks. When they get sick and can’t be replaced, it hurts the business. Or your competitor is offering a full health plan in order to lure your employees with all their company secrets away from you, and your non-compete clause is only causing a lot of lawsuits against YOU. So you offer the health care package as a part of your employee benefits. Unfortunately, you’re getting reports from HR that those benefits keep costing your bottom line more and more every year…and all the while Fred, the CEO of the health insurance company that promised you that wouldn’t happen, just went out and bought himself another mansion, complete with a yacht and a Picasso. You’re being taken to the cleaners over this, and you know it, but there’s nothing you can do…or is there?
Maybe this is one of those times when capitalism isn’t so great…you know, those times when you’re on the receiving end of the shaft. If the government creates a public option where the overhead is regulated and premiums go DOWN like they should when more people pay into the program, Fred’s going to have to know that he can’t keep snowballing his customers like that and expect them to continue paying into that private plan. On top of that, to win his customer’s faith back, he’s going to have to beef his plan up a little. Add the vision coverage back in, for example…so you can turn around and send a big company-wide email that you worked with your insurer, and got your employees their vision coverage back. You get to be a hero for a day or two and your employees don’t start trying to unionize out of desperation. Nice.
Of course, it’s highly doubtful that anyone like that is reading this, but I did the CEO part for fun.