So I finally got up the nerve to write to the Editor of the local paper, about a very timely subject – Health Care Reform. Follow the link, or look below to read.

Fellow Citizens,

No doubt in the past weeks you have been bombarded with information about government healthcare. With all the voices clamoring for either side, many have found themselves adrift in this sea of policy arguments. It is my sincere hope that this letter does not exacerbate this problem, but alternatively provide a clear and different view of the issue.

Much has been said by many people on either side. They hold fancy degrees, get paid a lot of money, and have titles that distinguish themselves from me. I am but a humble young man from Rhine, who happened to study the political process for a number of years – so I urge you to listen to me, but please do not formulate your opinion on what I or anyone might happen to say. If there is one thing I have learned, it is that a great many people do not research the issues but rely on purely what they are told. Given the choice, I would rather the readers of this letter to disagree with me as opposed to being ill-informed.

There is a problem with healthcare in America and it seems everyone wants to ignore it. The issue is not money hungry evil corporate tycoons, nor is it malicious politicians who do not care about the common man. These may be elements to a larger problem, but they are not the components I feel are central to the issue. If you have never asked your physician about their costs, I suggest you do so; you may be surprised. Years ago, becoming a Doctor was an extremely lucrative profession – this is no longer the truth. Doctors have to go through many years of school, for which they are generally charged a great deal for, before they can even begin thinking about hanging their shingle up in a town like Eastman. Once they finally get finished, they face a mountain of Student Loan debt. Then there are start up costs. They must buy a building, hire nurses, purchase equipment, and get their name out. This means more loans and more debt.

On top of all of that debt, there is still one last important thing all Doctors must purchase – insurance. Not health insurance, but malpractice insurance. Health Care costs are high – but when faced with a bill for health insurance I will choose it over malpractice insurance every time. But why does this matter to us? A Doctor must pay off all of these aforementioned bills. To do this, they pass the costs off to you. Effectively when you visit the Doctor, you are making a payment on all of their loan debts as well as their malpractice costs.

Allow me to present my alternative to all of the health care reform concepts that have been presented to the American Congress:

1. Deregulate. This may seem like a dirty word after the crisis we have seen in the financial sector, however deregulation is not always a bad idea. Insurance costs are presently driven up by provisions that may not be necessary, such as an imposed season for the switching of insurance plans and bureaucratic state requirements. For instance, until recently the state of Georgia required men to have health insurance plans that covered pregnancy care – which makes little sense.
2. Regulate. This seems to contradict my above statement, but regulation is not always a bad idea. Sometimes it becomes a necessary component of fiscal policy. A quick reflection upon history shows that Insurance companies are notorious for lacking regulation, a policy that has roots in the days of the Nixon years. Quite frankly, if one pays for health insurance they should not have to bicker with the company when they need to use the service. Steps should be taken to enforce the contracts made between policy holders and policy issuers. Furthermore, many health insurance organizations operate under non-profit status; yet they make huge profits. This creates an unfair market and is not the way a capitalist system should work.
3. My final point is Tort Reform. I have already promulgated the cost issues of malpractice insurance, so it should be clear the easiest way to reduce costs all around is to make it cheaper for Doctors to practice. The best way to do this is to reform tort law as it applies to medical malpractice. This argument has been presented before and there is a lot of hostility about this very issue. Common sense should tell us that our family physicians, who rarely perform very serious surgeries, should have to carry large malpractice insurance costs. A Doctor is a human being, they are apt to make mistakes – sometimes they do. As people we are thus faced with a position whereby we must assume some risk when we go to the Doctor, they may be wrong. We may have a bad reaction to a medicine they prescribe, or they may misdiagnose an ailment that has symptoms similar to another ailment. If we want treatment, then we should weigh this risk with the benefits and make a choice. Torts were not meant to protect us from accidents but rather incidents where someone has acted with malicious intent and displayed some sort of gross misconduct. Reforming the standards for what is needed to bring a medical malpractice lawsuit will lower Doctor costs and Court costs. For those of you keeping score at home, that means Doctors need to charge you less – in turn this means the insurance company has to pay less which should mean your premium price ought to decrease. A net benefit of this is that Courts are faced with less lawsuits making them more efficient and decreasing their costs, which means we all save on taxes.

Compare my plan with the one being pushed through Congress right now. They are completely different, but both work towards the same goal. As opposed to plunging this great country further into debt, we save money. As opposed to giving control of healthcare to a bloated and inefficient central government, we keep it localized and allow competition to keep prices down and increase service quality.

If you disagree with everything I have promulgated here, wonderful – I hope your opinion is an informed one. No matter if you agree or disagree, please look into this issue. Read the Bill Congress is considering, ask your Doctor what they think, consult several non-commercial opinions as opposed to main stream media – if nothing else, simply think about the issue and see what conclusion you reach.

Regards,

Ronald Edward Daniels

Candidate for Juris Doctorate, 2012

Walter F. George School of Law

http://www.ronalddaniels.com

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