Who is at fault for the issues with health care in America? Take a look in the mirror, says CEO of Delphi Financial Group, Robert Rosenkranz in the January 25 issue of Newsweek. Rosenkranz argues that insurance companies are not responsible for the perceived health care issue, citing their moderate profit margins, and instead puts the blame on the government and society. He uses the analogy that people don't call their car insurance companies every time they need an oil change. I agree with Rosenkranz; things have gotten out of hand to the point where people feel that for every back ache that may "need" a massage, their insurance should foot the bill. This is capitalism, and as long as we keep asking for crazier health insurance, companies have every right to provide it.
He also argues that legislation on health insurance has contributed to the problem. He references the fact that in most cases of insurance, people with higher risk pay a higher premium. That seems fair enough; if I lived in a certified, indestructible bomb shelter, I would not want to pay the homeowner's insurance of someone living in a straw hut in a hurricane zone. When it comes to health insurance, however, in many locales your payment cannot be determined by your biggest risk factor: age.
If a young person fresh out of college (read: you very soon) has a miniscule risk of having something go seriously wrong with their health, and isn't making that much money, why should they pay the same, or even nearly as much for health insurance as an old, rich guy? Well, they don't, and that's why many young people elect go without health insurance. It makes sense, and as long as the price continues to not reflect their risk, they are not going to want to buy into a system that, from a financial standpoint, favors older people.
Now I have nothing against older people—in fact I hope to one day become one—but I don't want to pay more for health insurance. President Barack Obama wants everyone to be insured and wants to get us young folk into the system. I can't argue with his sincere intentions, as he wants people to be protected and have insurance and be healthy. Unfortunately, it's going to take a lot more than a little legislation to fix the system; because the problem is ingrained in our society, a couple of presidential pen strokes are not going to fix it.
Our constitution forces government to work very slowly, as it protects minority opinions to such a degree that for anything big to happen, the majority has to also be really big. That majority isn't big enough for President Obama, especially after the recent contest in Massachusetts. The fact is that society changes the law, not the other way around, because society elects the lawmakers, and society is, for one reason or another, not ready for the change. You and I may be ready for a change, but there is a big portion of America that is not, and unfortunately we're going to have to either somehow convince them from the ground up, or wait it out until big change happens.
Change. This little word will now send me on a tangent. Why do people, myself included, see Obama's presidency so far as at least a bit of a let down? Well, it has a lot to do with that word. For obvious reasons, "CHANGE" makes for a better bumper sticker than "small incremental alterations." Obama was a candidate so cool he was like James Bond, Yoda and Batman all rolled into one, and he got elected because we like that sort of stuff.
However, now he has to be president. He has to be a politician, where being the second coming of Dumbledore doesn't really help, because all the senators and congressmen think that they are really cool too, and that it would be even cooler if they could get famous by stopping Captain Change. Is it that petty? Yes, and I think that the president has realized by now that his job is not all it was cracked up to be, because instead of getting everyone to love him, his new job is trying to deal with those people that hate him.
So now Captain Change's brightest banner, health care, is being fought over in a political war that has really very little to do with important questions such as why young people should have to pay a ton of money when they'll almost never use a fraction of it; or whether insurance should pay to fight pimples for some, but not cancer for others. Something will probably get passed—at this point it really has to in order for Democrats to save face, but to pass anything they'll have to compromise just about everything of substance out of it. So we may someday soon get a new health care bill, but the whole system still won't make any sense.