I DON’T BELIEVE I EVER WROTE an article about medical care. Now
I will, mainly because my own health became an issue overnight.
First I’ll say something about that, then I’ll take a quick look at
the new health care law.
Early one morning, still in bed, I knew I had to go to the
bathroom—quickly. But it turned out to be blood, and a lot of it.
Then more of the same about an hour later. Then still more. I
called 911 and was taken to the emergency room of a nearby
hospital. More bleeding and I was admitted, although that took
hours. Then more problems, including fainting when I went to the
bathroom. At that point I was put into the intensive care unit, and
I stayed there for two and a half days.
I don’t want to identify the hospital, but I was well taken care
of. I have no complaints. But intensive care is not something that
I can recommend. You are hooked up to gadgets that ring and ding
more or less whenever you move. So sleep, indeed rest of any kind,
is hard to come by. At least I was alone in the room and I didn’t
have to listen to someone else’s television or snoring. My wife
brought me a couple of C.S. Lewis books from home. A visiting
doctor saw them and immediately said that The Great
Divorce was his favorite Lewis book. I was impressed by
that.
I began to see how much the trial lawyers have added to the cost
of medicine. Everything is double and triple checked. But nothing
in the tort law department is likely to change any time soon.
Charles Kraut hammer has commented on this but liberal columnists
and editorial writers generally ignore it. “The trial lawyers own
the Democratic Party,” Krauthammer said.
It turned out that I had diverticulosis (not “-itis”),
characterized by “pockets” in the colon wall. Sometimes you get one
near a vein, which is why I had a good deal more bleeding than is
normal. They gave me a colonoscopy—unpleasant because of the jugs
of fluid you have to drink beforehand. But I was drugged and was
hardly aware of the actual operation. I’m glad to say that nothing
more serious was found.
I felt weak and tottery when my wife picked me up and drove me
home. I slowly recovered—then I received the hospital bill. It was
over $53,000. The bill said “for information only,” and I hasten to
add that I do have Medicare. My wife, who knows much more about
these things than I do, says she thinks that Medicare will cover
most of it. Most? Not all?I’ll find out in due course.
NOW FOR THIS LITTLE DETAIL: As far as I know, except for a few
brief intervals, I had no medical coverage for 35 years, between
the ages of 30 and 65. As they say, I “got lucky.” I never had to
go to the hospital in that time, except once, briefly, and on that
occasion the doctor’s office that I had visited had to pay, for
reasons too complicated to explain. I have also been fortunate
enough to see doctors only rarely.
According to recent estimates, about 50 million U.S. residents
lack medical insurance. Some put the figure higher. The number is
often used without qualification to urge the nation to enact
reform. But according to Carpe Diem, a blog by Mark J. Perry, an
economist with the University of Michigan and a visiting scholar at
AEI, surveys show that about 18 million of those uninsured had
incomes over $50,000. Most of them could afford basic health
insurance. In Michigan, Perry said, people aged 18 to 30 could get
insurance through Blue Cross starting at about $50 per month—about
the cost of a basic cell phone plan. Individuals under 65 could get
coverage for $138 per month—comparable to a cable TV and Internet
bill. Perry added this:
Since most households making $50,000 or more can afford multiple
cell phones and cable TV, it would seem like they could also afford
basic health insurance, and choose not to buy it. If they say they
can’t afford health insurance, they should consider canceling their
cell phones and/ or their cable TV service. If they choose cell
phones and cable TV over health insurance, that’s a voluntary
choice.
That was in 2009, so the numbers may have changed since then.
But it’s certain that the uninsured include many who are
voluntarily so. About 56 percent of the uninsured are under 35. The
young often make a rational calculation that they don’t need health
insurance because most young people in this country enjoy good
health. That was my own reasoning.
As to the Affordable Care Act, otherwise called Obamacare, most
of us know by now that the new law obliges us to have insurance.
Those who refuse will be penalized. According to the Supreme
Court’s recent controversial ruling, that penalty is a tax, which
renders the law constitutional. Citizens will now be “taxed” if
they don’t have health insurance by 2014.
The reason for this, of course, is to make premiums of younger
people subsidize the growing ranks of the insured, particularly
those with “pre-existing conditions,” who will now be covered.
Here’s Mark Perry again, this time in 2010:
The federal government wants to require young, healthy people to
buy insurance because if they don’t, premiums for everyone else
will go up. Insurance companies need low-maintenance, young
customers on their rolls so they can raise money to cover benefits
for lesshealthy people the health care bill will require them to
insure.
Inevitably, this mandate will be shot through with exemptions.
Native Americans and undocumented immigrants are already exempt,
and more exclusions will no doubt follow. Congress is good at this
kind of thing—passing laws with “afterthought” loopholes.
I wonder how many young people know they are being burdened with
taxes to help the rest of us. They pay into Social Security, but
will it be there for them 40 years from now? I doubt it. A young
niece commented: “I can’t say that this has been a huge topic of
discussion within my group…” Fact is, young people are too busy to
think much about the distant future. And that makes them a good
group to tax; they probably won’t notice, and many will happily go
on voting for Obama.
THE BEST COMMENT on the new health care law was made by Nancy
Pelosi: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is
in it,” she said. That was in March 2010, when she was still House
Speaker. Not known for irony, Pelosi certainly never read the
bill’s 2,700 pages herself. (It’s impossible to read because it
keeps referring to sections elsewhere in the Federal Code.) The
“you” in Pelosi’s quote should be “we.” She is right that we are
going to find out what’s in it, but that won’t happen until long
after the election.
The one thing we can say for sure is that the new law will turn
out to be a lot more costly than the Democrats claimed. But they
won’t care, because they see insuring people (with other people’s
money) as a moral imperative that trumps all budgetary
considerations.
In time, it’s likely that medical costs will be held down the
same way they were with Britain’s nationalized health: by
rationing, queuing, and postponing care.
