Health Care Reform in the US

I've been hearing this debate about the role of the government and health care for decades now.  Politicians seem to have been caught up in their garden path arguments to end up at ridiculous polarized positions.  Statements commonly made by republicans, for example, decades ago are now attacked as « communist » extremism by the same republicans.

Part of this is simple.  If we are able, we should help people in need; it is the right thing to do.  Period. 

Nobody wants to be sick.  Nobody wants to be in the hospital, taking medicine, or under someones care.  Individuals that need medical care are not trying to take advantage of the system.

Now, I realize what I have just said is triggering all these other associations set up by politics in the US, so let me make a few statements.  I am not a democrat or a republican (and am certainly not a communist, fascist or anarchist); I am and always have been independent.  I like a lot of things about the idea of a free market and capitalism; it is a very efficient system.  I know this is cliched now but I like part of the message in Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand; those who can should not be made subservient to those who can't or won't.  I own stock in companies and hope to profit from them.  I am no friend of unions; real unions might have a value in certain situations, but the protection schemes they have developed into ... but that is a different blog post. On the other side, corporations are not people--the supreme court was wrong on that one--and should not be allowed to contribute to political campaigns. 

If things are working as they should, people don't work for the government; the government works for people.  If it is capable, our government does what we, as a democracy, decide it should do.  This includes collecting taxes to build roads, schools, and libraries.  Things that have a clear public use and are an advantage to many of us in some way.  It is clear that having a healthy population is an advantage to all of us, rich or poor. 

One part of problem is the piecemeal way that health care has been cobbled together in this country, so that it gets more expensive and people fall through the cracks.  (Another part of the problem is misguided healthcare practices, but I am not going into that here.)  Health insurance, while a good idea in many ways, has made medical care more expensive.  Unless you are very rich, your health insurance is connected to your employment.  The combination of these things means that people that are unemployed cannot afford health care.  In fact, I know people that are employed that can not afford health insurance.  I also personally know people that were fired from their job when they became sick so that the business would save on health insurance.  Patchwork laws have been passed, like COBRA, to try to fill the gaps, but they fall short.  Long story short, this system is not working.

Would it help to disentangle health care from employment⸮  We are used to the idea now, but it is odd and arbitrary that health insurance is linked to employment.  What if instead, in an alternate system, we registered for health insurance at our local post office, or purchased it as a prepaid plan at our grocery store⸮  It sounds drastic but what if we passed a law that employers could not provide health insurance plans⸮  People would purchase regulated health insurance outside of their employment, as individuals.  This might be beneficial for both employees and employers.  If this or a similar dramatic change in the system will not work then is there any better option than to nationalize health care?

Or, are we saying that the richest, most powerful nation on earth can't even help its own people that need it, when it is the right thing to do?