In Which I Fix the Health Care Problem

Fair warning: the following is a rant. No, I'm not flying a plane into a building. At worst I may kill this mosquito buzzing around my desk or break a pencil or two. However, there is a churning in my gut that feels different than most afternoons after lunch. I've been ignoring politics as of late and I think I need a release. I'll tackle health care and demonstrate to you why normal people like you and I don't belong anywhere near Washington DC. See these demonstrators to the right in that photo from a health care rally? There's a day they'll never get back.

Who Made What Arguments?

First, I know the President said every argument about health care reform has been made. Really? Really? I'm not sure either side has formed anything more coherent than "death panels" and "unregulated this or that". It appears that the only way to debate in DC is to run to the cluster of cameras on the Capitol steps and spew a bunch of soundbites.  The level of debate is so infantile it could be sponsored by Pampers.

There is a business discipline called Process Improvement. Process Improvement experts look at existing systems and figure out where to cut costs and improve productivity. Seems to me if you were to apply Process Improvement principles to health care, your first stop would be the source of most problems, congress.

While I'm at it, I have to ask: why have businesses been dragged into health care reform? That's another tumor you can lob off health care's ass. Why does the quality of your health care depend on your HR department cutting a good deal with Blue Cross? Insurance companies virtually dress like NASCAR drivers with logos everywhere. Your employer is more of a sponsor for your health insurance company than a customer.

Wouldn't be more fair to have free market health insurance with FDIC-like protection where you are in groups based on your local hospitals?

Image via Wikipedia

Today's Lesson in Self-Indulgence

The only law on the floor of either side of the Capitol right now should be to make it illegal for any lawyer to be a lawmaker. I can't think of any other profession that has somebody looking out for them like the legal profession. How would you like it if the people who ran the country kept coming up with new ways for you to be infinitely employed? For every law written, a new legal niche opens and one more ambulance chaser has his rabbit hole.

Nothing about proposed health care is about making things simpler and more affordable for people directly affected: patients, doctors, and insurance companies. In reality this is an exercise in complicating everything so more consultants can over-bill. It's like our tax code. Hey, you remember Sarbanes Oxley? You know how that was supposed to prevent future financial meltdowns? Yeah, health care will be like that: nothing solved but everybody involved will have to work harder to get what they have today.

How About Prerequisites?

If you could actually get any professional politician in touch with their constituents, you would solve all sorts of quantum physics problems, including time travel and tunneling to Bizarro World. I propose before any of the  morons in Washington even breath "health care reform" from their intern-licking mouths, they go on sabbatical. During said sabbatical, they must complete the following:

• Work for three years in the corporate world, during which time they don't get a raise, have benefits cut, get laid off several times, pay for COBRA, collect unemployment until it runs out, and get rehired. After getting rehired, they have to spend a year paying a $12,000 deductible before the next open enrollment so they can pick a better insurance plan.

• 

  Image via Wikipedia

  Run a small business with fewer than say, 50 employees. And it should be in an industry where the majority of employees are minimum wage but accidents are likely, something employing truck drivers or dock workers. They should also have to do this in states where they pay quarterly taxes, just to make it interesting. Then have them try and figure out how to get all employees to sign up for coverage so the few that want it can have it and those that don't can complain constantly about their withholdings. In addition, every quarter, the insurance company gets to jack up rates or drop the company altogether because one of the employees has cancer.

• Also they need spouses to have have at least one major accident, something like falling out of a tree while pruning it or getting hit by a neighbor's car while checking the mail. Here's the stipulation: they must have an HMO during these incidents and forget to call their primary doctors before dialing 911. They  must also try to hold on to a full-time job while the spouse is incapacitated. They have to remain in this situation until all medical bills are taken care of.
• Finally, they must have aging parents on fixed incomes who need medicine for serious conditions like Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, or MS. They cannot afford to pay somebody else to care for them, so they have to figure out long-term care while physically bathing and changing their parents' adult diapers.

Maybe, just maybe, by going through these things, they might be qualified to work on health care reform.

You're not really expecting anything significant from this current legislation I hope. If so, then I hate to break it to you, Dwayne Johnson is not the real tooth fairy.

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