Every time an employer issues a paycheck, they record two sets of deductions: one for Social Security and the other for Medicare. There’s actually a third deduction for federal tax but that one doesn’t matter for our purposes. What I’m getting at is that every employer already takes out money from employees’ check for social programs. We’re used to this system and guess what? it sort of works. So if health care is so important that every single person must have it no matter what, then why not treat basic health care the same way we do Social Security and Medicare, and just deduct it, proportionate to how much each person makes, from their pay.
This is not a radical proposal. The health insurance companies would continue to exist and could cover people for more luxe healthcare items such as face lifts and experimental procedures. But for people who just need the basics, their paycheck deduction buys them in. Rich and poor, everyone gets basic healthcare. And since it’s based on actual costs and not projected costs, there’s no problem of anyone getting stuck paying for someone else’s pregnancy. Everyone pays the same rate, and everyone gets whatever health care they need, within reasonable limits.
Not only would this system be simpler and fairer, without giant slush funds of unspent money being accumulated as they are now by insurance companies, it would be massively effective in driving the costs of healthcare down. Currently, we know in America that our costs are way higher than in other developed countries; this is because we let our healthcare industry charge us insanely high prices. We seem to think costly means better. It doesn’t.
Meanwhile, the current system creates a high incentive for medical providers to order procedures that cost money, whether you really need them or not. Did you know that your doctor doesn’t get paid unless they prescribe something — a pill, a test, a procedure? No one ever gets a clean bill of health from the medical system because it’s not in the interest of the system for you to be healthy. This has ever been true, but today, you yourself are a system in constant need of regulation, usually by some pharmaceutical product, which may or may not make you better, and might make you worse! And then there’s the latest medical tactic — bullying. Don’t want that drug or test that your doctor says you have to have? You can be accused of “refusing treatment,” which we all know is a very bad thing.
Common sense says pay for what you use and treat what you really have, and you will pay less money. But as long as we keep our medical system in the hands of middle men, the prices will never come down — they will rise, year after year, and doctors and hospitals will jump through ever more elaborate hoops to make money.
Also, just by the by, this notion that everyone should pay 8% of their income for healthcare is frankly unfair, and for some low income people, not even possible. Last I checked, food is essential for health. But I digress.
Let’s solve our actual problem and figure out a way to make health care (not health insurance) available to all by making it a program just like Medicare. We can’t be leader of the free world if we’re going to be such hopeless laggards on something this basic. Like it or not, universal healthcare is the only way to solve our dilemma.
