Okay, I was trying to stay away from this because I admittedly haven’t been following it as much as some other topics in the past, but things that I’ve been hearing lately have been bothering me.

First off, I don’t really think you’re going to find many people that would disagree that the cost of health care is becoming an increasing burden on a significant portion of the population.  I know personally, the increases in my insurance premiums have been outstripping the yearly increases in my salary.  So in terms of the work to fix health care in the country, here are some problems I have with the current situation.

I’m generally in favor of a free market for the exchange of goods and services, but I am concerned that we currently rely on such a system for the provision of health care.  Basically, health care providers are primarily concerned with making money, not providing quality health care.  The same goes for insurance companies, who make it more and more difficult for health care providers to not worry so much about money, but providing good health care.  The problem, as I see it, is that there’s no natural downward pressure on health care prices, which is how a free market would ideally regulate itself.  There’s no natural downward pressure because the demand for health care is never ending, and people will only do without it as a last resort.

The most talked about solution is a public option for health insurance.  From the little I know right now, I don’t have a problem with it.  Allegedly, a public health option would be available to people who don’t already have health insurance and would provide services at a lower cost, primarily because the programs goal would be providing health care, not making money.  Opponents say that a public option would put private health insurers out of business because they wouldn’t be able to compete with a public option.

When has anyone ever accused the government of being able to administer any service more efficiently than private industry.  So if private insurers provide better service more efficiently than the public option, they should be able to survive without having to completely gouge all profit.  They may not walk away with the riches that they currently have, but haven’t we just learned in a hard way that greed is bad.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be really careful about instituting a public option should one get approved.  There are some serious pitfalls that could, in fact, destroy the private health insurance industry, but some of the screaming strikes me a bit as panic in the face of competition.  Health insurers have been doing whatever they want and increasing prices at a crazy rate and they’re afraid of the mint drying up.  Strikes me as a little bit like Wall Street recently.

Conversely, I think the idea of putting an additional tax on the wealthy to pay for any health care reform change is complete crap.  Everyone benefits from an improved health care situation in the country and everyone should have to bear the burden for it.  Hell, wealthy people will probably benefit less than the rest of the country from some of these proposed changes because they’ll have sufficient health care they can afford through employment, or they’re just plain rich.  Its just not something I can get on board with.

So someone more informed, tell me where I’m wrong.