EOC Week 5: Health Care Reform

Health-care reform in the United States is a hot topic in many political debates recently.  There's an entitlement mentality in this country that believes the government should just give us certain benefits such as "free" health care.  Just because Americans are uninsured doesn't mean they can't receive health care; it is illegal to refuse emergency medical service to anyone because of a lack of insurance. Also, there are many nonprofit organizations and government-run hospitals that provide services to those who don't have insurance.  While uninsured Americans are a problem in regards to the total system cost, it doesn't mean health care should be a right given to everyone by our government and paid for by taxpayers.  Any more government influence will only make things worse, leading to decreased doctor flexibility and poor patient care.  When the government controls things, politics always seep into the decision-making process.  Healthy people who take care of themselves may have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.  Why should we punish those that live a healthy lifestyle and reward the ones who don't?  Currently the law mandates that employers either provide insurance for their employees or pay a penalty that would go toward government subsidies so employees can afford to buy their own insurance.  Many company officials say a wasteful public-private system is pushing costs much higher than they should be.  Overall, businesses will end up paying higher insurance premiums to make up for the fact that Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements often do not match the total costs hospitals incur treating these patients.  It is unclear to what extent these concerns would be alleviated under the reform plan.  In total, the plan is expected to cover more than thirty million people, but roughly another twenty million are expected to remain uninsured (one-third of whom are expected to be undocumented workers).  Additionally, more than two-thirds of large employers expect their health costs to increase as an impact of the reform, and more than a quarter were considering reducing benefits to employees to control costs internally.  This would be extremely detrimental to Americans since a large percentage of hard-working Americans rely on getting their health insurance through their employers!