With the new health care system under development the US Government should consider many different aspects of a good health care system before finalizing it. While 18% of US national income is spent on health care 47 million people are still uninsured. It could be beneficial to “borrow” some ideas from the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany that have universal coverage while providing the highest quality health care at a very affordable price. These countries prohibit the insurance providers from “refusing to cover the sick.” The Dutch Government handles this through paying more to the insurers for covering people with preexisting conditions. The new health care bill also bans the insurers from refusing to cover the sick people, approximately 2% of the US population. However, CBO predicts that the public option so favored by the liberals will actually be beneficial to only these 2% and, thus, eventually it will drive up the costs even higher. On the other hand, the proponents state that public option will be cheaper since it will resemble a “large employer”, i.e. create a larger risk pool that will cancel out the larger claims with the smaller claims. Only after it is established we will know who is right. In the meantime, in the survey conducted by Thomson Reuters Corp, it was found that less than 60% of the respondents would like a public option as part of any final healthcare reform legislation, and about 59.9% believe in public option.
Sources:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2009/11/29/MN3U1AL75B.DTL
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/29/opinion/29starr.html?_r=2
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5B20OL20091203
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