My goal in writing this is to encourage everyone regardless of what side of the political fence you’re sitting to debate the issues that are being introduced under the broad category of health care reform. I will be using the core principle of elephant hunting by only introducing one bite of information each day on this topic of health care reform. In doing this I believe it is possible to keep from getting overwhelmed on this extremely complex topic. My intent is to focus on only one issue each day giving readers the facts and information to effectively debate the issue.
Don’t be fooled!
The new administration in Washington will be attempting to introduce as early as July 2009 a “public plan option” that would supposedly be allowed to compete with the private health insurance marketplace. This public option would be financed by you and me and businesses through taxes and would be run by our federal government and would be open to every American just like Medicare. In my opinion this is the most important debate to be discussed when looking at health care reform. It is not only my opinion but that of the independent consulting firm Lewin Group that if this public option is adopted, within as little as two years, the private health insurance industry would no longer exist. I strongly encourage you not to take my word for it but to check out the website for the Lewin group, www.lewin.com and read their white paper titled “The Cost and Coverage Impacts Of a Public Plan: Alternative Design Options”. This particular paper gives you specific details of why they have come to this conclusion. They point out that of the 170 million Americans currently covered under the private health insurance industry, 119 million would move from the private health insurance side over to this public plan. All you need to do is look back to 1965 when Medicare was introduced, it was created as a plan to compete against private insurers that offer coverage to seniors. Within only a few years, the only option left was the current federal Medicare plan that exists today that has zero competition. By the way, the federal government issued a report a few weeks ago that indicated Medicare will be out of money in only eight years. The current system of Medicare covers 40 million people approximately, my question is if we are going to add another 119 million people to a government run health insurance plan, who is going to pay for it?
Don’t be fooled by this public plan offering!
I am asking each one of you to debate the issues with your Congressman and Senators from Washington. Share this information with other people within your own centers of influence as well encouraging them to join the debate.
Matthew T. Berrafato
Elephant Hunter