In the spirit of my last post, about morality and government, I have more thoughts on such issues and specifically about our healthcare system.

When did it become immoral to hold people accountable for their life choices?

I was watching a news story this morning on CNN about Obama’s plans to nationalize healthcare. The first and most obvious question is, what in the world does Obama know about healthcare? And secondly, what in the world does anyone in congress know about healthcare? The American people have seen the demise of Healthcare over the last several years and the cause is because of the role the Federal government has played in trying to provide healthcare to people. The ignorance of this very fact, unfortunately, has caused many people to believe the lies that allowing this very same government who has deteriorated our current healthcare system to what it is now to completely take it over will somehow make it better. Let’s use an analogy to analyze this.

A farmer wants to produce more crops in order to make more profit. In order to do this he buys a brand new fertilizer that he uses on a small portion of his crops in order to see if those crops produce more than the crops who do not receive the fertilizer. After harvest, he finds out that in fact, the section of crops that received the fertilizer had a LOWER production. So logically, the farmer decided to put the fertilizer on all of his crops next season. Right? NO! Not right! The farmer would stop using the fertilizer.

The government is our fertilizer that is not producing more crops in our healthcare system. How in the world could our healthcare system be improved by the government taking over the entire healthcare system?

I think there is a root problem that undermines this issue however. Somehow people in the world have managed to convince each other, and more significantly other Christians, that somehow holding people accountable to their life’s decisions is immoral. Let’s look at an example of this.

A person is significantly overweight and has also smoked for the better part of his life. According to most insurance companies, this individual would have to pay an enormous amount for health insurance, probably more than any one person could afford unless he made a pretty good salary or cut most of his other expenses drastically. For effect let’s just say that this person would have to pay 520 dollars per month on health insurance for very basic coverage. Let’s also pretend that this person is single and work’s a moderate to low paying job at 9.50 per hour. After taxes this individual would make approximately 1213 dollars per month. So, 520 dollars per month is almost half of his monthly wages. Assuming he has no outstanding debt or extravagant living expenses, this 520 health insurance is affordable. However, let’s figure that he has been irresponsible with his life as he has with his health and make up a mock budget. He thought he could afford a house and so he has mortgage, he smokes, he is overweight so he probably spends too much on unhealthy foods and eats a lot of it, and he also “needs” his cell phone.

Budget:
600/mo Mortgage
20/mo Cigarettes
50/mo Cell
200/mo Food
75/mo Fuel
50/mo Cable
150/mo Utilities
1145/mo Total

This mock budget leaves him 68 dollars per month. You can see that he could cut up to 120 a month on cigarettes, cable, and cell phone, but that would only put him at 188 per month which is still not even close to enough for health insurance. So what is the key here?

This person has made himself too risky to insure. By saying that everyone has a “right” to health insurance, you are saying that it is somehow immoral to deny this person health insurance, and therefore to not hold him accountable for his life decisions. Now if you feel that his life circumstances yielded him inept to avoid the circumstance he is in, then you may feel free to pay the extra 460 dollars per month to give him health insurance. But let us examine the ramifications of a government healthcare system.

I believe the estimate to date is somewhere around 46 million Americans without health insurance. Let’s assume that 5 million don’t have it because they don’t believe in the American medical system and so they’re out by choice. That leaves 41 million who are out because they can’t afford it. Let’s also assume that Obama holds up his end of the bargain and indeed gives all people healthcare coverage similar to that of our congressman. Such healthcare costs around 500 dollars per month for a healthy individual. Considering that the statistic for obesity in America is roughly 1/3 and the people who are without health insurance are without because they can’t afford it, we’ll increase it slightly to 3/7 of this 46 million without health insurance is overweight. For someone who is overweight to have the same kind of health insurance that Obama wants to give, it would cost approximately 800 dollars per month. 3/7 of 46 million is close to 20 million (19,714,286). 15,771,428,570 dollars just for the overweight and 13,142,857,000 for the “healthy”. 28,914,285,570 (almost 29 billion) dollars in the best case scenario per MONTH to cover health insurance for all these people.

Okay, so let’s be fair and assume that there’s some form of payment that averages out to around 200 dollars per month for all 46 million people who can’t afford these high payments. That’s still somewhere in the neighborhood of 19 billion dollars per month on health care paid for by..?

The Government: Talk about immoral; our government is already bankrupt, as evident by the ever decreasing value of the dollar. Besides, if you want really hurt these poor people, continue printing the money required to pay for their healthcare. They’ll have healthcare but they wont be able to afford anything else as inflation reduces their buying power to virtually nothing. Not only that, but those who can afford healthcare but are in the lower to middle parts of the middle class will also be reduced to poverty as the value of the dollar is diminished and while their health insurance costs may not rise, everything else will and may likely cause them to not longer afford health care either.
The Rich: Increased healthcare costs to the rich will not cover 19 billion dollars per month unless we’re talking about taking so much money from the rich that we are now reducing their value so significantly that they will likely move away from the United States taking their profitable businesses, jobs, etc. with them. And you thought that 7% unemployment was bad?

Price Fixes: You can fix the price on how much health services cost, but then you’re talking about making a ton of people very angry, probably reducing the quality of all health services significantly. You will probably see more deaths in hospitals from bad care than ever before, and it is likely that many doctors and other health professionals will quit their profession or go to another country in order to maintain their standard of living. The biggest issue with price fixing, is that the current value of the dollar is in the process of decreasing, and so if you fix costs hospitals will run out of money for medical supplies as the cost of those supplies increases despite the stagnant cost of medical care.

If you think healthcare is a moral issue, you are correct. If you think that healthcare is a right to all people and should be forced by the government and that somehow that is the epitome of moral healthcare then you are vastly mistaken.