Healthcare Under Attack

(1/2024) We’ve done it again. Open season on healthcare—choosing a plan, believing we have power over our health.

Our American history of health insurance has great impact on our current healthcare accessibility. Through the 1950s and 1960s, health insurance evolved into an institution unto itself with the advance of "Employee Benefits". As the national corporate structure grew, paying employees with "benefits" became an indispensable part of business costs. Benefits are business expenses which are not taxable in the same way as a paycheck. Corporations save money on benefits, so they give generously.

Corporate employees are not everyone, in any country. America has lots of self employed people and lots of employees whose employers find ways to give them just enough paid hours to benefit the business. But not enough to require the business to offer benefits—in this way, health insurance is not available for everyone who works and participates in our society.

Health insurance companies, driven by cost calculations, decide how, where and when a policy holder can get medical care. Such companies are making medical decisions based on economic evidence. Whatever the relationship between costs and statistics of the efficacy of various medical treatments, an insurance company is effectively practicing medicine without a license.

For years the Democrats in Congress have focused on healthcare. The goal is to pull the resources already in healthcare into a connected system that provides care to all Americans. They came up with, and delivered, the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Our country is too big to create or dismantle a national system for everyone everywhere. The ACA was developed and put in place to start filling those gaps in access to medical care.

The ACA works. A person I know, has medications that, in the mysterious retail ways of pharmaceutical companies, is billed at $500,000.00 annually. A healthcare policy under the ACA insures that it is fully covered. The operative word—insures. The Affordable Care Act fulfills its mandate; it insures that medical care will not bankrupt a family.

The system is convoluted, and can be confusing even to the tech savvy shopper on any State healthcare and insurance portal. But it is a system in place, which can be simplified or expanded using the tools in place. The Biden Administration has lowered costs of commonly used life saving medications such as insulin. Thanks to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act the new price cap for insulin is $35.00 a month. Controlling prices and mandating access to medical care have, at minimum, two benefits. Healthcare that won’t bankrupt us. Healthcare that we control for ourselves, with our doctor.

Republicans in Congress have repeatedly stated that the ACA is bad. It’s not clear why, but it is clear that they have provided no alternative plan.

Once having a bit of power, Republicans had a ready answer to the question "how will you govern?"

The GOP answer is to solemnly proceed to practice medicine without a license. Requiring doctors to follow legislative directions on how to practice medicine. Requiring doctors to stop any treatment to save a woman’s life unless they can prove the need to a bunch of people with an unknown understanding of human reproductive conditions. This is as illogical as it is deadly.

The US Constitution’s stated purpose is individual liberty. From our Declaration of Independence,

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Around our country the Republican party is supporting elected legislators who pass, or try to pass, laws concerning an individual person’s body. None of these can be constitutional. To be enforced, every one of them, by definition, has to go through an individual person’s body and their "unalienable rights". To be enacted, every one of such laws were vetted based on a religious perspective rather than a scientific, medical one.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution states,

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof".

Simply believing one has the right to make laws based on religious beliefs does not make it so. Blessed be the posse of bright young attorneys that takes these details to the Supreme Court.

The answer to solving health issues, dangers of pregnancy, gender questions, et. al. is healthcare. A woman with good medical care that will not bankrupt her or her family can make sound, even righteous, decisions with her doctor. A family with good medical care, that will not bankrupt them, can get medical and mental healthcare for family members with gender dysphoria. A responsible government provides the tools for individuals and families to live their lives independently.

Yet the GOP, as a group, practices medicine without a license, and brings no answer to healthcare. The last Republican administration reduced the annual sign up period for choosing a policy. They made it harder to get health insurance if you are self employed, or need a subsidy for the monthly premium. The GOP made it harder if you are a small independent business. They are now making it harder to be an independent person.

A government’s purpose is to protect the citizens. The military protects from enemies, medical care protects from loss of life at any stage, affordable housing and jobs that pay a living wage protect from poverty.

Do we have power over our health? Yes we do, in many ways, whether preventative by clean living, or repair work with sophisticated medical intervention. Policies put in place by Democrats, sometimes with bipartisan agreement, focus on our core belief in the self determination of the individual, with the economic support of government.

Democratic policies set the goal of protecting the whole United States Constitution, the protection of individual citizens and their property rights.

This is the year of the vote. Please make it count.