When the Wall Street Journal starts fretting over the uninsured, we have a problem. This morning's paper featured two recently unemployed men: one in Illinois and one in the town of Hohenlockstedt in the German state of Schlewsig-Holstein.
Right off the bat, the reporter notes the key difference in outcomes for the two unemployed men: the American lost his health benefits and the German did not. I'm no fan of employer-based health "benefits", largely because they artificially inflate the number of uninsured. So, I have long advocated tax reform to give American families the same tax-break as American businesses for health insurance. It would make the price of health benefits transparent and give workers better opportunity to save money for a spell of unemployment, which they could use to pay premiums.
The featured American unemployed worker decided to give up snowmobiling and other recreation, because he had no health insurance. "It's scary being without insurance," he says, "but what do I give up? Food?."
Well, Illinois is not the easiest state for affordable health coverage, but it's not the worst: Various government interventions take it down to number 35 of 50 states in the U.S. Index of Health Ownership.
So, I had some sympathy for the fellow - until I got to the tail of the article, where the journalist decided to drop a pretty important fact: the worker received $64,000 of severance when he lost his job!
What did he do with the money? Paid off debts. So, now he cannot take responsibility for his own health insurance. And one man's inability to plan his personal finances becomes another excuse for government-run health care.
Research and commentary from a former senior executive in the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
1 comment:
This points out what is the real cause of the inflation of health care costs. Patients see health care as a right and do not take personal responsibility for it. They want someone else to pay for it. This disengagement of demand from the burden of payment has obvious consequences.
Kevin Petersen, M.D.
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