Introduction

Our--emphasis on our--national debt is skyrocketing. We are currently at $22 trillion, adding about $1 trillion a year. This is a bipartisan attack on our economic infrastructure.

Profits are increasingly under attack, with at least two of the leading Democratic presidential contenders claiming that healthcare industry profits “rip billions from healthcare”, effectively stealing money from the people who need it the most.

Put these two facts together, and this underlying economic philosophy is “Profits are bad, debt is good.

That is the subject of today’s 10-minute blog/podcast.

Continuing

We live in a unique and exceptional nation; part of the equally unique and exceptional role we all play in our country is to understand how American healthcare should work, and to hold our politicians to that strategy. 

My wife, Marcia, and I recently went car shopping. She had been wanting a Toyota Avalon for a few years now, and as her much used 2008 Subaru Outback needed more and more repairs, it seemed like a good time. After a few test drives and a few days of back-and-forth negotiating, we struck what appeared to be a good deal. When we got the right balance of trade-in value and new car price, we paid up and left with the car. And Marcia is still chirping. 

At no point did we concern ourselves with what kind of profits Toyota was making, or even how the dealer fared. We cared about the value we were receiving for the money we were spending. And we do want both the manufacturer and the dealer to make a profit and stay in business. In part to be around to service Marcia and her new car, and in part to continue to provide jobs, competition in the vehicle marketplace, and add their pieces to the economy. 

Why would it be any different with healthcare? Why is making a profit a bad thing? Don’t we want hospitals, physician’s offices, Urgent Care and the local doc-in-the-box to be financially healthy so they can be around to provide continuing care? Or is it that we think that the government can run healthcare so efficiently that healthcare will cost less with the government running it than with private business running it? If that is the argument, where is the evidence? The VA? The Post Office? 

If you scratch at the “profit-is-bad therefore we should insist that Medicare For All (MFA) be the one and only healthcare plan allowed” argument, making employer-based plans illegal, you get two things under your fingernails:

Medicare For All needs the relatively healthy workers and their families who are currently being covered under their employers so that MFA won’t be an even bigger financial disaster than it would be without them. Obamacare also needed the younger and healthier, hence the need to fine them if they did not choose to have coverage.

The MFA people want government to run just about everything. 

I was on private health insurance, save for my time in the Army, until a few years ago when I went on Medicare. This is highly anecdotal, but I will tie my experience to the larger picture in a moment. Over my years on Medicare, I have: 

Seen certain of my physicians limiting Medicare patients to a few hours, one or two days a week. 

Seen that some prospective healthcare providers won’t even take my information until they have a “Medicare patient opening.”

Been told that my access to drugs is limited because I am on Medicare. 

Gone through a decline in the experience level of my providers. Where I once would routinely consult with a physician if I had an issue, I was reduced to seeing physician's assistants and nurse practitioners. Now I am screened by medical assistants before I am allowed to consult with a PA or NP.

Seen the Medicare-driven paperwork rise dramatically.