The financial challenges of our health services crisis are symptomatic of a philosophical shift in consumer conduct and expectations towards health services that has left us competing with one another for the best rate, the best doctor and the best treatment available in managing our health.
By defining resources as limited, by indicating that there is scarcity of resources, our government, our insurance companies and our physicians have encouraged citizens to turn on one another like rats after a single piece of meat. The only ones to benefit from this are the people peddling scarcity.
The idea of using scarcity is completely common in our world...one of a kind, last chance, there are two of you and one of this....and the old ad that warned "Last chance send a dollar" which resulted in countless people mailing in their dollars for no other reason and for no other achievement but to have mailed in their dollar (this one was eventually stopped by law enforcement).
Consumers made two fatal mistakes:
The first was to believe that the "free market" governed health services costs. This argument was lethal, because it influenced consumers in believing that out of loyalty to capitalism, the government, our representatives who are placed in office by us, had no place in the health services environment. In spite of the glaring unreality of this view, consumers belligerently mimicked health service provider tactics that warned against big government and government involvement while insurers and providers spent billions of dollars in lobbying efforts to influence and enact laws that govern our health services industry for their own benefit.
The second major mistake made by consumers stems from the first. Having chosen NOT to use governmental influence to counter governmental actions that favored providers and insurers, consumers also failed to insist that the laws passed include terms that addressed our core concerns: Access to Affordable and Quality Health services. Therefore, we allowed ourselves to be acted upon as health insurers worked to make themselves financial institutions, as health insurers spent profits on salaries and other business improvements rather than passing on savings to consumers. As health insurers shifted from insuring (covering the risk of expense from illness) to prevention (finite costs often amounting to only a fraction of premium dollars spent). As health insurers lopped off coverage for this and for that at ever-increasing prices. Similarly, consumers failed to insist that legislation beneficial to doctors (through the AMA efforts) that allow more and more non-medical doctor personnel to administer medical services pass those savings onto consumers. Therefore, consumers who never see a physician but instead see a physician assistant, nurse practitioner or some other staff are still charged the same amount through policy that allows providers to charge for the service rather than who provides it.
These two errors: Failure to consider the governmental role in our health crisis and failure to insist that legislation favoring insurers and providers also mandate that those savings be passed onto consumers has left us arguing with one another on issues of HEALTH, HEREDITY AND HABIT.
The triple H infighting among consumers has done nothing to help the health services crisis. The fact that your neighbor smokes and is now charged more for health insurance does not protect you when you are unable to get coverage for next year's excluded medication or treatment when you are sick. The fact that your neighbor's age and illness is "draining" insurance company resources doesn't protect YOU when you actually need medical services that the insurer won't pay for. The fact that physicians can threaten NOT TO TAKE PATIENTS UNDER MEDICARE UNLESS THEY GET MORE MONEY which WORKED does not protect you from a physician refusing to take you on because guess what, we didn't insist that the legislation protect us because we wanted to ignore the government as part of some free market fantasy. And your heredity? Too bad heart disease runs in your family, why should we pay for it? The answer is simple. We are all human with human frailties and while the myth of blaming your neighbor and somehow exempting yourself from the human condition is simple, it is wrong and it makes things worse for every person who finds out today that he is ill.
Keep it Simple today: Unity as consumers who are the backbone of the health services industry is the only way that we will stop being acted upon and start having our insurers, providers and government representatives RESPOND TO US. Start examining health care proposals and policies in terms of how any one of them helps consumer concerns of Access, Affordability and Quality. If you want to triple H your fellow citizens and count them out because of health, heredity or habit, MAKE SURE that you gain protections from all the money companies and providers save by throwing your neighbor under a bus. Keep it Simple today and as Obama promises a push for technology rather than a push for reform, consider this push like the bailout...you know, those millions that somehow got transferred from government to business bypassing suffering Americans. So ASK how those changes will be LEGALLY required to be passed onto consumers in terms of legislative language, provision for enforcement of such language.
