Why Don't We Have Universal Health Care?

 

There must be a reason why the US does not have universal, tax-supported health care. It is simply inexcusable that we do not, but we don’t. I can think of two reasons why we don't. First, Americans have been so brainwashed into idolizing large corporations and hating government that they think private insurance companies are a safer bet than the government is. So, they think, stick with the private insurers rather than turn the matter over to government bureaucrats. Second, the powers that be use their money and the political power they buy with it to stop the government from taking business away from private insurance companies. The top executives of those companies are unconscionably rich just as are the top executives of essentially all big corporations. Those guys form a sort of informal club dedicated to preventing the government from diminishing the wealth and power of any of them. They use their wealth to buy politicians of both parties in order to make sure none of that ever happens. So, we’re stuck with for profit health insurance companies that are, like all big corporations, concerned almost exclusively with profit in general and with increasing return to the shareholders in particular. They care about profit not about people. They will deny any claim they think they can because paying claims costs them money and denying claims saves them money. They know that they are legally bound to comply with the law and with the terms of the insurance policies they issue, but they will skate as close to line of violating that law or the terms of their policies as they think they can get away with.

As a general rule, I am not particularly opposed to private insurance companies. Back in my lawyer days, I used on occasion to write coverage letters for one or more of them analyzing whether a particular claim is covered by the terms of a particular policy. I understand that insurance, though insurance agents often call it a product, is actually a contract between the insurer and the insured. The insured is, therefore, entitled to have claims paid that the terms of the insurance policy cover but is not entitled to have the insurer pay any claim that the terms of the insurance policy do not cover. There is no reason for the government to take over most of the insurance business. Property, auto, and personal liability insurance from a private insurer is perfectly legitimate.

But surely health insurance is a different matter. Not everyone requires property insurance, but all people require health insurance. All people require it because all people have health. Some have better health, some have worse health, but all have health. Not everyone has an insurance claim for property loss in their life, but all people require health care at some point in their lives. Health care has become prohibitively expensive for enormous numbers of people. Only health insurance makes it possible for them to receive the health care they require. Health insurance deals with matters inherent in being human. It touches a person’s very being in a way property or liability insurance does not. Health insurance is a human need in a way other insurance is not.

But not everyone can acquire private health insurance. Health insurance companies have various ways of denying a policy for people they don’t want to cover. Perhaps more importantly now that insurance companies cannon deny coverage on the basis of preexisting conditions, health insurance has become prohibitively expensive for millions of Americans. I would not be able to afford it were I not old enough to be on Medicare, Medicare being, of course, a government run health insurance system supported by tax dollars. I paid for it all of my working life. I still pay for it because, though I am retired, I still have to file an income tax return, and the amount of my Medicare contribution is included in what I have to pay. I also have some Medicare premium deducted from my Social Security income every month. But I can afford Medicare. I could not possibly afford the $12,000-dollar monthly payment for most private health insurance. Because millions upon millions of Americans cannot afford private health insurance, the government must step in and create a system something like the “Medicare for all” system our social democrats are proposing.

We are the only so-called developed country in the world that does not have a tax-supported universal health care system. That we do not exposes the lie of the claim that we are the greatest country in the world. There are other reasons that we aren’t as well, but our leaving millions of our fellow Americans without affordable health care perhaps tops the list of those failings. It is way past time for us to do something about it.