Landis Vinchattle

*I read this letter and sent it to myself – thought you might enjoy it…*

Letter: Reform health care: Get government out of the way

To the editor:

President Obama’s latest gimmicks to try to pass his mightily flawed health care “reform” seem to be these two points:

1. Insurance companies are greedy and are the cause of health care cost inflation, and

2. The uninsured are putting off care and then getting it in emergency care situations where it’s more expensive. So insuring them will reduce costs.

Both suggestions are straw men designed to try to keep the focus off the failings of his terrible bill.

Let’s start with the “greedy” insurance companies. First, their profit margins rank 87th out of the 100 largest industries. They make less money per dollar of sales than Proctor and Gamble does on soap and toothpaste. Hardly seems “greedy” to me.

Second, the average profit is under 5 percent of sales, and private health care represents about 50 percent of total health care expenditures. By the way, here in Massachusetts, the “Big Three” earn about 1 percent on sales while being ranked No. 1, No. 3 and No. 4 in the nation for quality coverage.

Therefore, the “greedy” profits amount to 2.5 percent of total health care costs. So Obama is proposing to junk the system that works and works well for 2.5 percent and turn it over to a bunch of incompetent government bureaucrats — whose error rate is probably greater than 2.5 percent. If every last penny of profit were washed out of the private system it would pay for nine days of the country’s health care costs.

As Mitch McConnell says, what are we going to do about the other 356 days?

His second point is masterfully illogical — but then, he’s good at that. He says we’re NOT paying for care for these people — so somehow paying for their care saves money? How do we get away with lower costs when we’re going to insure 31 million additional people?

Ah, but he has an answer — they’ll get preventive care and avoid that expensive claim down the road. Sounds logical… until you look at facts.

FACT: the average uninsured person (whose health statistics — longevity and the like — aren’t much different than an insured person) spends ONLY 75 percent as much per year as the average insured person. Same approximate health profile — 25 percent lower costs.

Whoa, how can that be? Easy. When I’m spending insurance company money (or worse yet, government money), I don’t care how much something costs. It’s not my money, so why be frugal? Spend like a drunken sailor. But when it’s my money, I’m a lot more careful. I shop. I compare. I look for bargains.

How do we work that American frugality into health care? Certainly not by having the stupid government muck it up.

Rather, get the government out of the way. Drop barriers to out-of-state competition. Reform malpractice, which causes somewhere between $100-$200 billion a year in excessive costs. Increase transparency, so it’s easier for people to shop for the best doctor/hospital at the best cost. Offer Health Savings Accounts to employees: Indiana has done it for state employees, and they’ve pared costs by $8 million per year despite putting $2,750 into each participant’s account (for the employee to keep if he remains healthy).

What’s more, 70 percent of employees have signed up for it. Imagine. State employees — full-time, professional wards of the government — are signing up for a private plan that rewards them for spending wisely by letting them keep what they save. If professional, full-time bureaucrats will buy into it, how popular do you suppose it will be with people who are used to spending wisely?

Jim Edholm

Andover