The Name We Dare Not Speak
Putting political correctness aside, where it belongs, I'm more than a little tired of all the whining about the millions of Americans who don't have health insurance. The numbers are reported like they are rising watermarks on a levee — 35 million, 40 million, 44 million. In 2005 the number may reach 48 million.
My reaction has always been — so what? If people want health insurance, they should go out and buy it. Set priorities, folks. If you want insurance badly enough, you may have to give up something else to get it.
But that isn't going to happen. These people aren't going to willingly jump off the U.S. Gravy Train while they're getting a free ride.
I don't lose any sleep thinking about these 40-odd million people who make no effort to help themseves. But recently I read a couple of articles that made me realize something. All these uninsured people are affecting me.
It may be time to rethink this thing.
Americans are the most caring, compassionate people that have ever graced the earth. When uninsured Americans get sick enough, our compassion won't allow us to just leave them to the fate they deserve. We pick up the tab. How? Higher taxes. Higher premiums for our own insurance. Higher premiums for employer-paid insurance, which translates to higher consumer prices. In 2005, we will pay about $43 billion in these hidden costs.
There's more bad news. The cost of insurance is becoming a major burden to employers. General Motors just announced it will lay off 25,000 workers between now and 2008, and one of the reasons it gave was the rising cost of health insurance. The ripple effect on the economy of major layoffs like these can be substantial.
And if I'm the one getting laid off, or outsourced, or downsized, or off-shored — the effect is catastrophic.
GM spends more money per car on health insurance that it does on steel. That's nuts. Could it be that the whiners are right? Is our health care system far too byzantine, inefficient, out of control? But the alternative, that hulking spectre whose name we dare not speak — s-s-s-s-s-s-socialized m-m-m-m-m-medicine — sounds so, well, un-American. Nowadays we call it single-payer health care, but somehow it doesn't make me feel any better about it.
No. I'm sorry. I'm just not ready to take that leap.
At least, not until they come to take away my health insurance.
