Even Mr. Can Do himself, the president, had to acknowledge last week that health-care reform might die in Congress. The placard-waivers on the corner of College and Mulberry are celebrating, but other than the thrill of tweaking their rivals, do they know why?
A poll cited in Newsweek this month revealed that almost half of those opposing reform don’t know why. They should learn what their stance will cost them.
Lacking the chops of a health-care policy wonk or even a health care-focused journalist, I can’t credibly critique the proposals, nor can most Coloradans. But based on what I experience daily as a father and small-business owner, I can make the case that our system is busted, and like an automatic transmission that clunks, it won’t get better on its own.
As part of our doctor’s “one-two punch” strategy, we filled prescriptions recently for two medications that tackle the same ailment. One cost $2.95, the other $193. Unless the latter is made from truffle extract or fairy tears, the invisible hand of free enterprise can’t explain the discrepancy.
In January, we vaccinated one of our children, following the normal doctor-recommended lineup of shots and sprays for healthy children. The clinic charged the insurance company $482. According to the Disease Control Priorities Project, the fully loaded average cost to vaccinate children in third-world countries for a wide range of diseases is about $5 per vaccine.
I’m a long-standing businessperson and entrepreneur, and I’ve even got one of those MBAs from a none-too-shabby university. I know unfettered enterprise when I see it, and this ain’t it.
You know those pages in magazines that follow drug ads, the ones with print so small those most likely to benefit from the information, the elderly, are least able to read it? Four pages of the stuff followed an ad for Seroquel. I scanned the pages and told my computer to count the words. It totaled ten thousand words, almost 20 times the length of this column. Who are we kidding?
The original intent for publishing such information was good … to inform patients. But even if anyone bothered to slog, they would likely trip on words like leukopenia, neutropenia and agranulocytosis.
Such nonsense exists because fear of lawsuit infects our system, the same fear that prompts doctors to order unnecessary tests as defense in case their patients sue them.
Just this week, as a result of expired discounts that my small business fought hard for last year, coupled with rising costs hitting everyone, our tab for providing health care to our employees is increasing 48 percent.
The greatest tragedy in all this is that political rancor has prevented serious debate about change that Democrats, Republicans and all Coloradans desperately need.
Americans pay at least twice as much on health care per person versus other developed nations, and evidence of our inefficient system surrounds us, in national statistics and everyday waste at the pharmacies and clinics around Fort Collins.
To the protesters at College and Mulberry suggesting that government action is unnecessary, that the marketplace can sort it out, I would suggest that, in this case, the market has failed us. We, on the left and right, need to do something.
