California Health Care

2008 Republican Presidential Candidate Ron Paul stated the following about health care in the U.S. The HMO Act of 1973 requires employers (with 25 or more employees) to offer HMO's to workers. This law removed the incentive for health care plans to be offered to individuals and removes the incentive to offer health care plans to the unemployed. The tax code allows businesses – but not individuals – to deduct the cost of health insurance premiums. So now the high premium costs are no longer an issue - only the co-pay. If Universal coverage is the replacement for the current state of health care, the current problems will only grow. The problem is government intervention in health care!!

Paul also stated that coupling employment and health insurance was illogical. Congress never blames itself for the problems created by bad laws. Instead, we are told more government – in the form of “universal coverage” – is the answer. But government already is involved in roughly two-thirds of all health care spending, through Medicare, Medicaid, and other programs.

Similarly, The Left Wing Liberal California Legislature never blames itself for the currently despised state of the health care system in California. They actually believe that more government interference is necessary to improve health care’s current status. The California government is the impediment to progress toward affordability of quality health care.

Another problem is The Council on Graduate Medical Education’s (COGME) blunder decision to advise the nation’s medical schools to reduce their admittance based on projected surpluses professionals in the medical industry. There has never been an “actual surplus”! COGME’s advise produced “actual” shortages of professionals in the medical that lead to more problems than any surplus ever would.

We must revise the State HMO Act and advocate the revision of the Federal HMO Act to allow HMO’s to do business directly with individuals. The law should be no different than the law for car insurance, renter insurance, and home owner insurance. California must also have medical immunity for health care professionals (similar to prosecutorial immunity for District Attorneys) which will reduce career costs to medical practitioners.

Health care costs will go down due to market competition, not politically imposed price caps by the government. More value added services will be offered which will raise the quality of health care in a much more efficient way than Hillary/Obama care. Consumers will enjoy their health care coverage much better because they have more control over their health care options.