Why is healthcare reform necessary and desirable?

Answer 1

We have a moral and ethical imperative to ensure everyone has access to resources governing basic survival, such as health care. If your objection is that the reform legislation creates a new entitlement, consider the following:

1. The United States already underwrites the cost of health care for the poor, disabled, and retired in the forms of Medicaid and Medicare programs. Medicaid recipients aren't required to share the cost of treatment (to any great extent, anyway), simply because they can't afford to. Medicare recipients pay a premium, which is sometimes 100% subsidized by the government, have a deductible, and make co-pays, just as they would under any insurance program. Medicare recipients have the option of buying commercial policies that provide "gap coverage" or reimbursement for services not offered under Medicare.
2. As of 2010, and for the first time in history, more US citizens participate in socialized or quasi-socialized medical programs under Medicaid, Medicare, and the VA than hold commercial health care policies.
3. The 46,000,000+ uninsured who don't qualify for government programs often use hospital emergency departments for primary care treatment because they have no other medical access. Under EMTALA (Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act) hospitals that participate in Medicare are required to provide emergency services to anyone, regardless of ability to pay. While hospitals can refuse treatment to people not suffering an emergent condition, most don't. Hospitals are unreimbursed for this charity care, which has resulted in the closing of several thousand emergency rooms and hospitals nationwide.
4. Health care reform is not an entitlement, or free lunch, for those who can legitimately afford to pay premiums.
5. For-profit commercial health insurance companies have a built-in conflict-of-interest between serving insurance clients and increasing shareholder wealth. Policyholders routinely bear the burden of the conflict in the form of radical premium increases, reduced benefits, and higher co-pays.
6. A significant percentage of the uninsured are young, healthy people who opt out of paying for health insurance either because they can't afford it, or because they feel invincible. This skews the risk pool toward older or chronically ill people, which raises the cost of both premiums and treatment. Meanwhile, if someone who deliberately chose not to buy health insurance is injured or falls ill, the rest of us absorb the cost of their care.
7. Many physicians and pharmacists support health care reform, because they are more likely to be reimbursed with the new legislation than they were without it. The idea that health care reform results in more uncompensated care is a myth.
8. The United States spends far more money, per capita, per year, for medical treatment than any developed nation providing "socialized" or subsidized health care.
9. The current system is broken and rapidly becoming worse. Out-of-pocket medical expenses have driven many insuredcitizens into bankruptcy.
10. People need to learn the facts (not Republican propaganda) before criticizing health care reform. Most people who object to the legislation do so because of the way the information has been presented to them. When the legislation is broken down into its individual components, the majority of reform protesters support the changes.

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