Back to Basics

The U.S. health care system is the best in the world, spurring advancements in new medical treatments and technologies.  Such innovation helps physicians treat and prevent diseases better than ever before, eradicates once fatal epidemics, and helps Americans lead longer, healthier lives.

Despite these advances, millions of Americans struggle to find affordable health insurance options.  From 1999 to 2008, the average cost of a family health plan increased by 119 percent from $5,791 to $12,680.  Meanwhile, workers’ wages increased 34 percent during the same nine-year period.  Ensuring access to quality, affordable health care is a laudable goal.  I support targeted solutions that lower health care costs and improve health care by building upon, not completely dismantling, our health care system.

Unfortunately, many of the proposals being considered in the U.S. Senate will make health insurance more expensive, jeopardize Arizonans’ current coverage, and expand the government’s control over health care.  While you will not find the words “ration,” “withhold coverage,” or “delay access to care” in the pending plans, that is what will result from the web of federally-dictated insurance reforms, new legal obligations, and provider reimbursement schemes that are part of them.  Such policies centralize the power of medical decisions with politicians and bureaucrats, not patients and doctors, and they will result in the delay or denial of care.

There are three main problems with the Majority party’s proposals: the implementation of a government-run insurance plan, the use of comparative effectiveness research, and spending.

Government-Run Insurance Plan:

First, the Majority’s proposals would create a new, government-run health insurance plan to compete against private insurance plans.  The argument is that a government-run plan would give consumers a better range of choices and make the health care market more competitive –”keep the insurance companies honest,” as the President put it.  However, well-respected, independent analysis provides evidence to the contrary.  For one thing, a government-run plan would be subsidized by the taxpayers, giving the government plan a huge advantage over competitors.  Yet, even government resources are not unlimited.  To save money after tens of millions of people are added to the public plan, the government would cut reimbursement to doctors and hospitals, exacerbating the difficulty Arizonans’ already encounter in trying to schedule doctor appointments.  To make up for low government reimbursements to providers, insurance companies would have to charge more for private insurance, making it less attractive than the government plan.

Over time, there will only be room for the government plan according to the respected Lewin Group, as 119 million Americans would lose their current coverage.  Remember, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were designed as independent “government-sponsored enterprises” to complement the private mortgage market.  Now, Fannie and Freddie account for a combined share of 73 percent of mortgage originations in the second half of 2008.  The two “government-sponsored enterprises” are now effectively owned and run by the federal government, after having sustained losses of over $100 billion last year alone.  A Washington-run health care plan will do to the health care market what Fannie and Freddie did to the housing market.