Universal Health Care? Hmmm.

This blog post will deal with Senator Bernie Sanders’ call for universal health care under a single payer program. His proposed system would eliminate all health care premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. Everybody in the U.S. would be covered—nobody would be excluded. He proposes to pay for this kind of coverage by an elevation of taxes.

We need to look at this idea carefully. I believe that Senator Sanders is suffering under a utopian idea that has serious defects in it. He apparently does not have enough experience in health care delivery to understand what his proposal will entail. Let me explain:

Although many people agree with Senator Sanders, they do not understand that free health care will cause a huge increase in demand for this “free” benefit—I’m talking about a FLOOD of patients appearing in emergency rooms for treatment from everything from hang nails to bad dreams. I know this is true because of work that was done several years ago when I was a medical student. The Rand Corporation examined the effect of co-pays on emergency room visits. The study found that a $5 co-pay decreased ER visits remarkably from the going rate of then $0 dollars for each visit. Evidently, this minimal charge was enough to cause anyone going to an ER to think twice about it and try to remedy the situation by using a little common sense before resorting to ER care.

At the present time, states can impose copayments, coinsurance, deductibles, and other similar charges on most Medicaid-covered benefits, both inpatient and outpatient services, and the amounts that can be charged vary with income. All out of pocket charges are based on the individual state's payment for that service.

Even with the United States’ present policy to require minimal co-pays for ER visits, our ER’s are still treating a lot of minor problems because for Medicaid patients the cost is so low, they can’t afford to go any place else. Eliminating co-pays will only exacerbate that problem. (ER care is the most expensive care available for out-patient help.)

Under Sanders’ plan, hospital costs for maintaining ER services will escalate. I believe that health care should be available for everyone. However, I also believe that everyone should work for a living if they are physically able to do so; and they should make a reasonable effort to pay their own way through the health care delivery system.

The present system of entitlement payments for health care, housing, food stamps, financial assistance, and fictitious disability claims incentivizes people from working for a living. Adding another layer of entitlement payment will only make the welfare system worse than it already is. A single payer health care system will add huge numbers of inefficient bureaucratic workers to America’s present overload of government employees.

A Short Book Review—Miracles by Lee Strobel

 

Those of you who have been reading my blog posts know that I have been very concerned lately about intercessory prayer and its relationship to miraculous healings. Nancy and I have been absorbed lately by a book by Lee Strobel—Miracles.

This book is an entertaining, fast-paced defense of God’s miraculous action in the world. The book begins with an extensive interview of the editor of Skeptic magazine, Michael Shermer, and all through the book, Strobel continues to refer to the comprehensive remarks that Shermer makes, which were intended to blow holes in the idea that God is actually able to intervene in man’s affairs in such a way as to produce contradictions to the physical laws of the material universe.

After giving a lot of space to the arguments of Dr. Shermer, Strobel goes on to introduce a list of many committed Christians who have excellent arguments in opposition to the skepticism of Dr. Shermer. Those arguments are convincing and faith-producing. All through the book, Strobel plays the Devil’s advocate, repeatedly presenting alternative points of view to his interviewees. By the time one gets to the last chapter, a reader will see clearly that God’s miraculous actions in the world are not only true and believable, but they also are seen as characteristic of God’s plan for the ages.

One of his interviewees, Tom Doyle, and experienced missionary, convincingly makes the point that miracles are still going on in the world.

All that being said, the real clincher in this book comes in the last chapter, an interview with Dr. Douglas Groothuis. That chapter entitled “When Miracles Don’t Happen,” was, for me and Nancy, the most inspiring chapter of all. It has to do with Groothuis and his wife, a woman with a chronic disease that has culminated in advancing dementia. I am personally familiar with Dr. Groothuis; and I have learned a lot from him about the need to be a competent apologist for the faith. But…I had never heard about the struggle he and his wife have had over a chronic and advancing disease that has not been mitigated by any miraculous action on the part of God. This chapter is the ultimate in faith-building for those who would have God answer their prayers for miraculous healing.