Straw men and opportunists threaten health-care reform

Straw men and opportunists threaten health-care reform

It’s always easier to do nothing.

And that’s what Republican opponents of health-care reform are banking on.

In any proposed overhaul of something as complicated as health care in America there’s a thing or two that will stick in just about anyone’s craw. It amounts to socialized medicine. It will use tax dollars to fund abortions. It will undercut Medicare. It will create a giant data base and people will be assigned ID cards. It will raise taxes. It will saddle future generations with higher costs.

Any or all of those things are possible, so let’s just kill this monster.

That’s what the opponents of health-care reform are saying.

But it’s what they are not saying that is important. And that is this: The cost of health care in the United States has been rising at far above the rate of inflation, doubling every 10 years or so, and there is no reason to believe that trend is going to be reversed without intervention.

Costs keep rising

Typical coverage for a family now costs about $13,000 a year, and as the cost has increased, companies — many of which used to pick up the entire cost — have been forced to increase co-pays and deductibles. Even public employees who once believed they were immune to such pressures are being forced to carry more of the burden, and the pressure on government isn’t going to abate, it will only get stronger.

The $13,000 coverage cost of today is going to be $25,000 in nine or 10 years. And the 10 or 20 or 30 percent that the employee is paying today is going to rise to 40 or 50 percent — if an employee is still lucky enough to have coverage.

So while opponents use catch phrases and loaded words to sour people on the idea of reform, hoping to put another nail in the reform coffin that they’ve been hammering away at for more than half a century, no meaningful alternative is being presented.

The Senate opened debate this week on its version of a reform bill just as the Congressional Budget Office released a report saying the bill could significantly reduce costs for many people who buy their health insurance. The premiums for large employers would not be likely to change dramatically.

At the same time, it would increase the number of people covered by insurance, which is key to reining in insurance costs. That’s because people who don’t have coverage and can’t afford treatment don’t go off into the woods and die. They go to hospitals for treatment and their unpaid bills are eventually passed along to paying (and insured) patients.

Cost containment

One of the primary sticking points in the debate is the existence of a public option, generally favored by Democrats, that would make a government health insurance plan available. Some of the same people who claim that government can’t do anything right complain that a public option would provide unfair competition to for-profit insurance companies.

But without a public option — or at least the prospect of a public option if private companies don’t meet cost reduction targets — there is little likelihood of controlling runaway health-care costs.

Clearly it is wrong to pass along today’s costs to the next generation through deficit spending and adding to national debt. But it is equally wrong to bequeath to the next generation health-care costs that have been growing at unsustainable rates and show no sign of slowing down.

Those who oppose the health-care reform bills working their way through Congress now have an opportunity to argue for their proposed amendments in an attempt to make the law more consistent with their view of what’s needed and what the American people want. That’s the American way.

Those who are lining up against reform just to weaken the Obama presidency — and there are Republicans in the Senate who have framed their opposition in exactly those terms — are preforming a disservice to their constituents and to the nation.