The latest Kaiser Tracking Poll finds the public still split on health care reform legislation, with 43 percent in favor and 43 percent opposed. The survey goes on to break down a list of various elements of health care reform where there is some degree of consensus.
For example, more than two-thirds of the public overall said it was either "extremely" or "very important" that these changes be passed into law: reforming the way health insurance works ( 76 percent), providing tax credits to small businesses (72 percent), creating a health insurance exchange (71 percent), and so on.
With all the emphasis on how insurance works, and who can buy it, and at what price, we seem to be losing site of the real issue here – health.
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At the end of the day, we Americans are spending 15.9 percent of our GDP, ($6,657 per capita) on health care, according to The World Bank. This is more than twice as much as other industrialized countries, yet we still have higher rates of infant mortality, diabetes and other ills than many other developed countries. Some would say this is a matter of national security.
Will more spending on a failing health care system make us a healthier, more economically-competitive, nation? We are living in time and place where most of our health issues are now caused by our behaviors, yet we still operate a health care system that applies medicine the way it treated farming accidents and contagions a century ago – after the fact.
Instead of providing massive funding to a broken and outdated system, there is another way. Every time you sell a consumer-directed health plan you are placing the power into the hands of the consumer and you are creating an environment that rewards personal responsibility and prevention over third party payments for the treatment of avoidable acute illnesses. Feels pretty good, doesn't it?
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