Several weeks ago, I pointed out the merits of the Affordable Care Act and suggested health care is a natural right. I argued our nation should level the playing field for those who cannot afford health care and give them a means to find insurance through a system of cost-sharing by mandating everyone buy insurance, given a reasonable price. By rewriting the rules of the insurance market, the ACA has done that. Yet the majority of students campus-wide disagree with the legitimacy of the ACA on ideological grounds.
In no other nation has health care fueled such an ideological divide. We’ve been bred in America, the land of individualism, the home of capitalism. What people hear is that the government will force everyone to buy insurance, therefore disrupting the free market and distorting competition in health care. This affront toward the Affordable Care Act is based in speculation, and has little basis in the real world. No industrialized, educated country today exists where health care operates in a purely free market.
If health care is an ordinary commodity, then it should be purchased according to the market price, without government interference. In this case, we’re potentially asking patients to compete in the free market to barter for insurers to pay for their medication and treatment. This is “competition” in the traditional sense.
The cost of health is priceless. I was ill for a long time. I’d pay anything to ensure I don’t revert back to that state. Needless to say, capitalism will take advantage of that fact. You will find few insurance companies who want to ensure the sick. Moreover, pharmaceutical companies find it easy to charge any price for life-saving medication. When it comes to true illness and disease, the patient has little choice in the matter. The doctor prescribes. The patient’s insurer buys.
Is the government really to blame in this provider-patient-insurer exchange? The price of specific treatment and medication is not fixed, but rather fluctuating and agreed upon. If two women were to deliver a child at the same hospital, with the exact same treatment, bed, and procedure, they each would receive separate bills with separate prices. In the background, each patient’s insurer agrees upon a different price with the hospital. In other words, because the patient is insulated from the purchase, a traditional free market cannot exist, and government regulation is necessary to protect the patient.
We can point many fingers about the cost containment issue. Many argue patients have no incentive to seek lower cost options because their insurance or the government foots the bill. In many circumstances, the patient cannot meaningfully access “good” health care. He or she is prescribed a treatment or hospitalized – take it or leave it. When it comes to life and death, health care cannot be approached as a commodity that forces patients to shop for insurers and treatments.
As most other educated nations have realized, an element of shared responsibility which pools responsibility becomes the only practical approach to health care. Let’s look at the situation in Massachusetts, a state that’s already implemented its version of the individual mandate. Massachusetts has seen emergency room visits decline by 5–8% as a result of their version of the individual mandate. A 2010 study by the nonpartisan Urban Institute stated 98.1% of state residents held insurance after the bill.
Western European nations, Japan, Singapore and others guarantee their citizens equal access to health care; we’re now beginning to see that guarantee sprout in the States.
The Affordable Care Act appears to address many of the problems with the health care industry today. It is a bill centered in compromise, repealing it would set us back a long ways. To guarantee health care for all while simultaneously controlling cost, we must implement innovative, experimental, regulated reform that moves past ideology, as many other industrialized nations have already done.
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Tarif Haque is a sophomore majoring in computer science. His column runs on Tuesday.
