Democratic Platforms / Privatized Health Insurance

I can't remember about whether or not I've actually blogged about this, but during the last election (Kerry vs. Bush), I was thinking about blogging about how the democrats needed to find some fresh material to campaign for. They were trying to turn attention to Medicare and health care reform, old issues that, to my mind, are pretty much resolved. Sure, people complain about HMOs and the lack of prescription drug coverage, but things are certainly a lot better than they were in the days before unions when we had company towns and sweat shops, etc.. To my mind, it seemed like most of these battles were pretty much won, and that maybe the reason a lot of people were turning to the Republican party was because they were tired of hearing the Democrats complaining about issues that were really in pretty good shape.

However, sitting here this morning, I started thinking that maybe the reason the Democrats were starting to harp on Medicare and prescription drug coverage was because they were getting political contributions from the health care / insurance companies to try to force companies to sink more money into the health insurance.

Now, just to change topic slightly, I think it's kind of odd that our government is forcing companies to buy health insurance for their employees. The idea that you would make a law forcing people to buy something is somewhat counter to the idea of free enterprise. I understand how and why it happened. I understand the need for health coverage for everyone, and I understand how a faith in the ability of free enterprise to keep costs down would cause us to try to create a privatized health care industry, but just on principle alone, I don't like the idea of making laws that force people to buy something from someone else.

Now, if it were just on principle that I didn't like the idea, but the idea was working pretty well, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but there are some problems with our system. First of all, costs are still pretty high. Maybe the cost of health insurance simply reflects the high cost of medicine and we're really getting just what we're paying for, or maybe somebody along the way is pocketing huge profit margins, I don't really know, but it's still an open question. Second, not everyone is covered. By forcing companies to buy health insurance for their employees, you're obviously not covering people who are either without jobs or are self employed. Also, the way our laws are structured, you don't cover people who are working only part time, or, in many cases, the family members of the owner of a small family-run business.

This is not to say that I think we should switch to a government supplied health coverage like they have in Canada. We have a huge investment in our current system, and I don't think we should be bouncing our laws around willy-nilly unless there is a very good reason for it. People plan their lives and careers based on the current system, and to go changing that out from under people will create a lot of havoc. Nonetheless, if I were to make a recommendation to another country that was just starting to try to provide health coverage to its citizens, I wouldn't necessarily recommend our system.

Of course, I don't really know enough to say which system is working better, so I wouldn't necessarly recommend against our system either. So why am I even bothering to blog about the issue? Because it's 4:00 in the morning and I don't have anyone else to talk to, that's why.