So What do the Candidates Think?

Now here is a challenge: Talk about health care and get people excited to read it while at the same time weaving politics into the mix. I have been meaning to discuss the upcoming presidential elections with regards to the two candidates and their positions and for some reason the excitement level just wasn’t there. I would start the article and then scrap it because even I was falling asleep and if the author falls asleep during an article what chance does the reader have? I mean just the title “health care politics” dredges up thoughts of long boring meetings and lectures you never wanted to hear. But maybe we can make it fun so lets give it a go. Unless you have no political interest at all I imagine you know by now that we are finally down to two candidates running for office since the primary season is over. (I should hasten to add that I frankly want the whole lot of them gone so I am voting third party this year just to stage my own little protest so in actuality there are still more than two candidates.) For purposes of this little blog we will discuss the main two positions, which shouldn’t take long. Yes I am qualified to do this because I have actually read the plans that each of the senators has on their individual websites so you should be thanking me for the work I have slaved over for you. I didn’t simply take the summaries put out by the media so you should be proud of me. Just because I had a beer to help me through does not diminish the significance of what I have done. So let’s start with Senator Obama and his plan. I can sum it up real quick by telling you that he is going to mandate coverage to all and in so doing he will lower the cost of health care. If people can’t afford the insanely expensive cost of health insurance then taxpayers will pay for it – hardly a cost saving method there. Kudos to Obama for finally getting the uninsured covered but what makes the Obama campaign think that will lower the cost of health care? He explains it in many ways but to summarize his plan it only increases the oversight (ie-bureaucracy) and will do nothing to actually decrease the cost of health care. Just saying it will does not make it so. Health care is the poster child of unintended consequences and when you cover everybody it is historically accurate to say that will increase the prices that doctors, hospitals and drug companies charge. Where is the cost savings in that? So Obama’s plan is bad but not near as bad as McCains. The only thing even remotely unique or different about McCain’s plan is that he says he will allow health care to be bought across state lines and that can hardly be considered thinking outside the box. In a sector of the economy that will ultimately bankrupt this country unless changes are made, McCain essentially says “hey, working good from where I sit so let’s keep it the same”. At the risk of sounding like a long-suffering nanny, that is a “poor choice”. Lets be blunt. The only fact on the health care dilemma that all parties agree on is that health care is too expensive. In other words it costs too much and that means sticker shock when you go to the hospital, doctor or pharmacy. Since we all agree that health care costs too much then I propose that unless a policy helps to bring down the cost of health care……don’t do it! Increasing oversight in health care and subsidizing outrageous insurance bills (Obama) or attempting to convince us that keeping things the same (McCain) in an unsustainable health care system are what I consider outrageously ignorant solutions and are nowhere near the vast changes we need to implement. That, my friends, is one of many reasons why I will be voting third party this year.