Archive for July 15, 2009

The Realities of Healthcare: the GOP Still Doesn’t Know the Price of Milk

Ditch the logo,but keep the healthcare plan.

In the early 1990s, then-President Bush faced a firestorm of criticism for, quite simply, not knowing how much milk costs at the supermarket. It wasn’t relevant for the “truth of the matter asserted,” but rather tended to show that Bush lacked the basic awareness of reality that any policymaker should have, before presuming to speak in the public’s best interest.

The same could be said of Republicans on health care, today. GOP frontbenchers are famous for sticking to the script, and the most recent health care debate is no exception (“I thought so little, they rewarded me…”). No matter who you listen to on the right, you’re likely to hear this one talking point: government-run health care would interpose a nameless, faceless bureaucrat between the doctor and the patient.

This simple statement evinces a shocking disconnect between the Republicans’ perception of healthcare, and what healthcare actually looks like for the average “real” American. As someone with a “continuing condition” (worry not, dear reader – it’s mild and treatable!), both I and my family have spent hours upon hours dealing with the monstrous construct that is the modern insurance system. We know, as John Boehner and Karl Rove apparently do not, that what exists today in America is a system that puts “nameless, faceless bureaucrats” directly and often immovably between doctor and patient.

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar to you. I’ve waited a week for an insurance company to confirm that, yes, the medication I’ve been taking for nearly twelve years without incident really was necessary to my continued health. Meanwhile, I had to pay out of pocket for the pills – $50 for a week’s supply. I’ve been forced to retake blood tests, or produce 12-year old documents, to justify similar medicine. And this is not an uncommon or life-threatening ailment: it’s just one that requires continued treatment. Woe to another American, less well-off than me but stuck with a more dangerous or urgent condition.

I know the name of the insurance companies’ game, and you do too: loss avoidance. To the insurance companies, we’re not patients, and doctor’s aren’t caregivers. We’re liabilities, and they’re enablers. Insurance exists to make a profit, and they’re damn well going to make it, whether it’s in our best interest, or not.

Contrary to the Republican talking point, there’s every reason to think that a government-run plan would be substantially less of an impediment to care, and less of a burden on a doctor-patient relationship. Medicare spends significantly less on adminstrative costs than private insurers, precisely because the mission of private insurers is loss avoidance — not care!

This situation is one of the few cases where the “elitist” narrative makes sense. Good for Republican Senators that they enjoy a “Cadillac” insurance plan, that pays out seemingly without question. But this fortune apparently deprives them of the ability to relate to the real experience of health care on the ground. Perhaps if Republicans actually made an attempt to identify with voters on the ground (who support health care reform!), rather than using culture war issues as a proxy for real caring, they’d understand the real problems with American healthcare, and maybe win an election or two. Oh well: maybe some day.