Go to the mobile version of this Web site.

Login | Contact Us | Site Map | Paid archives | Electronic edition | Subscription Questions | Extras

A DIFFERING VIEW: Rocky off base on health care proposal

Paul Hsieh, M.D.

Published April 10, 2008 at 12:05 a.m.

Text size  

More Letters to the Editor

More stories »

Contrary to the April 6 Rocky Mountain News editorial ("Health care reform for grown-ups"), Sen. Bob Hagedorn's proposed mandatory health insurance is the wrong prescription for Colorado. Massachusetts has already imposed a similar system of mandatory insurance for over a year, and it is failing badly. Like Hagedorn's proposal, Massachusetts requires everyone to purchase health insurance, with government subsidies for low-income residents. But rather than creating a health care utopia, the result has been the exact opposite - skyrocketing costs, worsened access, and lower quality health care.

The Massachusetts system violates the rights of individuals to spend their own health-care dollars according to their best judgment. Instead, individuals are forced to choose from plans approved by government bureaucrats. Special interest groups have loaded these plans with costly required benefits that many people might not otherwise voluntarily purchase, such as in vitro fertilization and chiropractor services. Although Colorado politicians promise not to impose similar expensive mandates, how long do we realistically expect this to remain true?

Due to the skyrocketing costs, the Boston Globe reports, the government will have to "cut payments to doctors and hospitals, reduce choices for patients, and possibly increase how much patients have to pay." Massachusetts is also asking the federal government to make up the shortfall of "hundreds of millions of dollars."

Instead of another massive government program, we should adopt free market reforms, such as eliminating insurance benefit mandates and allowing Colorado residents to purchase health insurance across state lines. These genuine reforms could reduce insurance costs between 20 percent and 50 percent for thousands of Coloradans, without compromising access or quality. The free market is the only moral and practical solution to our current health care crisis.

* What do you think? Go to RockyMountainNews.com/opinion to join the conversation about this issue.

Paul Hsieh, M.D., is a practicing physician in the south Denver metro area and a co-founder of the Colorado group Freedom and Individual Rights in Medicine (FIRM).

Comments

  • April 10, 2008

    4:27 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    socrates writes:

    The free market works with widgets - not with health care. Any system in which your choice is pay or die is inherently not a free market.

  • April 10, 2008

    6:36 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    VVVV writes:

    Pay or choose to take that risk is the very definition of a free market. Freedom should include the right to choose to not have health care. For any health care procedure the doctor has to get your approval before he starts. You have the right to refuse to be treated, therefore you should also have the right to refuse to pay for insurance that you won't use. The tragedy is when people who choose to not pay for insurance can't pay for the procedure they suddenly want. That is the risk they were banking on avoiding, so to be a free market, the hospital should be allowed to recover all costs through a lifetime of federally controlled endentured servitude, if necessary. It would be almost equivalent to minimum security prison with medical benefits and mandatory work assignments. When a hospital saves an uninsured person's life, that person owes their life to that hospital. A force of low paid, but insured, workers that must work off their debt to the hospital would reduce medical costs, ensure all people are guaranteed health care, and provide a great incentive for people to opt for insurance in the first place. Since the uninsured are the cause of the problem, shouldn't they bear the brunt of the consequences?

  • April 10, 2008

    7:37 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Art writes:

    The Massachusetts plan is a dismal failure and has only served to exacerbate the problems in that state. For Colorado to follow their lead is the height of stupidity. Oregon is suffering similar problems with their mandated system as well. We all know that if the insurance companies see that there is a requirement, a law, that all people must purchase health insurance it is a free ticket to raising everyone's premiums and co pays. This is only sensible for the insurance companies. Allow the citizens of Colorado to purchase health insurance from whatever state they want and you will see the rates come down. Of course the legislature already killed this bill since it would "cause harm to the insurance companies doing business in Colorado". Why would it cause harm to Colorado based companies? Simply because they would have to lower their rates in order to compete with companies in other states. The legislature is thus telling the citizens of Colorado that they do not want us to have choice and the certainly do not want to allow us to be able to find affordable health insurance.

  • April 10, 2008

    8:09 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    KelcyCo writes:

    Lets eliminate health insurance as we know it today and make it only catastrophic insurance. Everyone pays their own way for anything under 25 thousand dollars per year, what you might pay for a small car these days. It will eliminate the waste in dollars required to maintain all these insurance companies with their individualistic forms and tracking numbers, as well as reduce the number of people in all those medical facilities and offices that are paid to submit all the bills to the insurance companies. Patients would better appreciate the care they get because they actually pay for it. They are more likely to drop medical practioners that give them poor service. The cost of insurance should go down per individual and then maybe we can get everyone covered for catastrophic events.

  • April 10, 2008

    8:13 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    Gandalf writes:

    that's all well and good SASQUATCH if you actually have enough money to "shop around", however, I think your living in a fantasy world if you think that we are all able to make this kind of choice. Try giving your "smoke and mirrors" spiel to the millions who have chosen to have the best insurance they can afford in today's society and are still getting the shaft from the insurance company that is supposed to be providing them the service(s) they paid for. I'm hardly advocating 100% socialized medicine, but to actually think that this situation can be fixed by simply choosing better insurance is a delusional pipe dream.

  • April 10, 2008

    12:44 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jjez writes:

    As I've said before, it's corporate greed that has increased our costs! Since the CEO & his cronies have to make so many millions a year, that cost gets passed on to the consumer. The local dentist has high overhead (you think novacaine is cheap? or the drills?--for the same reason everything else is!) so of course it's impossible to make a profit (and a good one at that) by charging what the Mexican dentist did. Get a clue people!

  • April 10, 2008

    2:29 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    mrfxx writes:

    Froward69 - how did you miss Japan? I find it interesting that big business in this country isn't clamoring for some form of universal health care or single payer system, since they are the first to whine that they can't be competitive because of benefits (like health care and under- or unfunded defined pension plans that they dump on the US taxpayers at the first opportunity) when the countries they are competing with typically do have some form of universal health care or single payer system. WAIT - those countries (which frequently have lower infant mortality rates and higher longevity) also have a lower cost of living, so they will still offshore the work - but the businesses will have one less excuse to do so.

  • April 10, 2008

    5:04 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    raysmom writes:

    One thing I haven't seen addressed on this thread is that insurances were never meant to pay for EVERYTHING. Insurances of all kinds should be supplements, and used for catastrophic events. Auto insurance has a deductible in most cases- get a car you can the upkeep on. Homeowners insurance is the same. But nobody budgets anymore- they have families and houses and cars and lifestyles that they can't afford!

    When I couldn't afford a car, I used public transportation. When I couldn't afford a house, I rented. I waited until I was 30 to have my only child, when we could afford it. Now we own a small business, and we pay for our insurance and insurance for our employees, because we choose to. But we can't afford the co-pay system premiums, so we have opted for a Health Savings Account Plan.

    This is before tax dollars put into an account held for that purpose, along with a well-care and higher deductible catastrophic plan. The Bush administration has been pushing this, and the rates are going down, and it's AWESOME! We save on tax dollars, and I do have some health problems, so I choose and manage my own health care, and I have discovered that the insurance money that was spent on wasted tests and procedures insisted on by the "professionals" was like a pyramid scheme! This system keeps them honest, reduces costs, and puts the power into the hands of the insured. And yes, I am glad we can afford it, but there are programs in place already for those who really need help- I am happy to have my taxes help those in real need- they aren't the big problem.

    The big problem is that so many otherwise intelligent people want the gov't (my tax $$'s) to take care of them when they are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and budgeting like we do! I don't think I'm better than anyone else- I think most people are capable of being responsible- they just don't want to be- it's easier to sit at the trough and have the politicians and big businesses who want power spoon feed them! And the politicians depend on this attitude to KEEP them in power- the trough is BIG BUSINESS and the BIGGER the BETTER.

    I'll live my own life and make my own decisions, thank you, and I trust most everyone else to do the same- I know they can.