Americans are clamoring for health care reform. Driving the demand for reform is the belief that health care is too expensive and is costing the taxpayer too much money. The cost to the taxpayer is attributed to the estimated 40 million uninsured people in the country. Economical issues, as opposed to ethical and moral issues, fuel the debate between liberals and conservatives on the issue.
Progressives in particular, are pushing hard and heavy for a “single payer option” which would essentially make private insurance companies redundant in the relative near future. They argue that private insurance companies are making too much money and not living up to their duties to provide coverage for their customers. In making the arguments, they trot out what they consider to be egregious examples of abuse of insured people. People being denied treatments recommended by their physicians.
Conservatives argue against the single payer system under the belief that the government is incapable of effectively and efficiently providing responsible medical care to the public. They also object to the fact that the middle class and above will end up footing the majority of the health care reform bills. To that argument, the Progressives argue that the savings will more than off set the costs. Both side use comprehensive confusing statistics and figures to attempt to make their points.
Missing from the arguments is one important thing: A definition of what constitutes health care. In short, everyone is discussing health care and there is not a clearly defined and accepted definition of what constitutes “health care” anyplace on the table. (more…)
