Healthcare Freedom versus the Health Care Wedge

To ease the pain of the battle over healthcare fought in the House of Representatives on Mar 21, I listened to a telephone conference call by a group opposing the bill to find out what they were thinking. I had convinced myself that the health reform bill was going to pass, in spite of the opposition of a majority of Americans.

The Take Back Medicine group (http://www.takebackmedicine.com/) interviewed physicians who have opted completely out of third party insurance to deal directly with their patients. Not only has it given them direct control of their medical practice once again, but it has given patients the choice of who to see and when. They suggested that one option for patients under the new healthcare law would be to pay the fine and choose your own care. It felt like a way out until I wondered how I could afford a catastrophic event such as a bad car accident or major illness?

Dr. Jane Orient, MD and Member of the Assoc. of American Physicians and Surgeons (http://www.aapsonline.org/) suggested some of the following: Christian Medi-share (plans that exist now are exempt from the mandate), increased medical coverage on auto insurance, critical illness insurance, and offshore catastrophic insurance plans. These ideas gave me some hope.

Searching out Christian Medi-Share reveals a website full of testimonials and detailed information of their plan (http://medi-share.org/default.aspx?id=52). In my excitement, I posted it on Facebook to quickly find out that a friend has been using this plan for about 7 years and is very happy with it. Other searches found that Mutual of Omaha offers Critical Illness Insurance. This was a good start and gave us options that we are seriously considering. The cost of healthcare has been an increasing burden to my employer the last several years and I am fairly certain that eventually they will dump us all into the government plan.

Currently many employers offer a high deductible catastrophic type of insurance plan where individual employees can sign up for a Health Savings Account (HSA). The deductible could be $3,600 per person or more. Research has shown that when patients have control of their healthcare dollars they make thrifty choices and spend less. The HSA can be rolled over if there is a job change. The purpose of the HSA is to save pre-tax dollars to pay for the deductible or other medical expenses, as needed, with the employer often chipping in too. This has served as a ‘wake up call’ to some of us using this kind of system and given us the feeling of having more control, as well as, realizing the need to save for medical expenses.

Others, like Twila Brase of the Citizens Council on Healthcare (http://www.cchconline.org/), have noted the “double standard” when it comes to health costs. If a patient doesn’t have insurance the provider will charge the patient a lot less or in some cases alot more. What’s that all about? Why does insurance pay more? Rush Limbaugh in his April “Limbaugh Letter” states: “What’s wrong with the US Healthcare system has nothing to do with actual Medical care. It has to do with who’s running it”. Today there are a lot more American citizens who want to have control over their own healthcare as opposed to control by a ‘big government left wing progressives'.

In 1960 over 75% of national healthcare costs were paid for privately (either directly by the patient or private insurance). By 2007, the trend of public funding meant that less than 54% of total national healthcare was paid for by the private sector with over 50% being paid for by the public sector (government). In its study “The Prognosis for National Health Insurance: a Minnesota Perspective”, the Freedom Foundation defines the “healthcare wedge” that came between the doctor and patient with the inception of government run health insurance systems like Medicare. It means that patients no longer monitor their costs nor are they or their healthcare providers “incentivized” to keep costs low because they don’t know what it costs – someone else is paying for it. People think ‘it’s
free’.

We need to focus on repeal and seriously considering opting out, but if the ‘Big Government left wing progressives’ in Minnesota have their way even opting out will be prohibited. Please go to Citizens Council on Healthcare at http://www.cchconline.org/petition/ObamaCareMN.php to sign a petition. Get involved—your friends & family will thank you.