steve graves

Obama’s Health Insurance Plan Is No Panacea

Whatever we do to the supply of health care in this country will prove inadequate until we address the demand side of the equation. Just as Americans - individuals, industries, governments - have been borrowing themselves towards oblivion for the last generation, we have also been eating, drinking and smoking ourselves to epic levels of degenerative conditions which ultimately result, for all the obvious reasons, in enormous health care costs. The health care crisis, in other words, is yet another example of Americans living beyond their means - choosing the path of instant gratification over the more disciplined path of long-term sustainability. Our bodies are the most intimate statements we make with our existence; Americans have become increasingly lazy, obese and self-indulgent over the last several decades. Our supply of health care is a capitalistic response to this development. Obviously there are inefficiencies, exploitations and excesses in our health care supply that must be addressed for the sake of both individuals and industries, but addressing them will not 'solve' the health care crisis. Ignoring the demand side of the equation is tantamount to burying our heads in the sand. It's a difficult issue, especially in a democracy where free will is revered even when it leads to costly self-destruction. But until those aspiring to reform our health care supply address the HEALTH CRISIS, especially with an aging population and a quadrupling of childhood obesity in a mere two decades, their efforts will yield surprisingly little.

The manufacturers and distributors of our food supply must be held accountable - there is no other way. If your happy meal provides three days worth of fat then it should be taxed accordingly (while healthier options are not).

At the same time our citizens must stop relying upon physicians, most of whom have little more than a Readers Digest grasp of diet and health, to keep them healthy. If you're 100 pounds overweight and suffering from a rash of 'conditions' as a result, your co-pay should reflect that situation. Wanna save money? Lose weight. And while we're at it, health club memberships should be tax deductible with a simple monitoring system in place (your card swipes a certain amount of times per month, the deduction kicks in - simple in the computer age).

I realize that to many of the free marketeers on Seeking Alpha this sort of stuff might sound a bit Orwellian - Big Brother's going to control my life! Well you know what? I wish He didn't have to! But the fact is, modern Americans are like kids in the candy store gorging themselves while their chubby little politicians make speeches and scramble to find ways to enable their irresponsible behavior. But the era of having everything we desire no matter what the cost is over, which means we now have two choices. Either we can keep whining and living on borrowed time (by borrowing more) for a little while longer, until the whole mess collapses into a pile of smoldering rubble, or we can embrace the new era of sustainability and person responsibility.

I would argue that health care reform, providing it addresses the root of the problem, might be a good place to begin.