Forced Health Care is Bad Bad Bad
photo credit: boliston
Jaclyn’s last post was about a proposal floating around Washington DC that would mandate that all employers provide health coverage for employees. I disagree strongly with her take on it.
The truth is, the fact that employers often pay for their employees healthcare costs is what has made medical care in the United Sates not only so expensive, but also so full of bureaucratic delays and red tape. When someone with employer-paid health insurance goes to the doctor, they don’t care how much the doctor charges. All they care about is their copay. Because of this, doctors don’t have to compete on price. Since they’re not competitive on price, there’s no reason to offer any additional benefits or perks (like inviting waiting rooms, cozy exam rooms, house-calls or appointments that doctors aren’t routinely 45 minutes late to) to their costumers.
Because the doctor doesn’t bill the patient directly, they don’t think of the patients as their customers. The insurance companies and health maintenance organizations are their clients. It is to their whims that the doctors must bend.
Getting rid of all employer-funded healthcare would turn us into a nation of healthcare costumers overnight, instead of just consumers. Doctors that provided warm and quality service for a low price would succeed. Those that don’t, wouldn’t.
Carl on June 15th, 2009 11:34 am
I completely agree and have been saying this for years. Government needs to be added to the list of businesses that need to stop this practice.
Jaclyn on June 15th, 2009 12:25 pm
I agree that Health care services are often times too expensive. However, i disagree that doctors don’t care how much they charge for services and that they are all the same. I am a person who has unfortunately been to many many doctors of all kinds and for many reasons as well as second and third opinions for the same problem, and a number of these times i was not covered under any insurance so it was my responsibility to pay up front the entire cost before i could even get into the exam room, and it was my experience when inquiring how much the services would be…everyone was different. some were cheaper and some were not. some charged for every little thing they did that day and others only charged for the major things they did and wrote off the little ones. Also with every doctor i have been to they have all been late for my appointments whether i had no insurance, insurance through the state or insurance through an employer. If we cancel out all medical coverage provided by employers, imagine the number of people who will be signing up for state funded insurance which would in turn eventually make everyone’s tax dollars go through the roof! which in turn people would begin to complain about rather quickly as their taxes sky rocket due to so many people being on state funded health coverage, as it is our tax dollars a lot of the time that goes to fund the state medical coverage hence why every pay check you get you see where they have taken out taxes for medicaid and you do not get those back at the end of the year like you do your state and federal tax. so either way, someone is going to have to end up paying a possible high amount for the health care coverage, either every person in population through taxes, or the employers who cover the employees.
RedHotFranchises on June 15th, 2009 6:48 pm
Very good point. Someone will always have to pay for it, doctors shouldn’t view their patients as customers and should only focus on doing their job with the intent to serve the community. Employer-funded health care helps make American businesses less competitive globally.
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