A couple of the current presidential candidates are making a lot of noise about so-called universal health coverage. I have heard many people mistakenly refer to this as universal health care. They are not the same thing.
Universal health coverage simply means that the government, using tax dollars, will be paying for health insurance for citizens and possibly non-citizens as well. Ok, that may sound really nice to some people but what does it really mean? Health insurance may be nice to have but it can hardly be equated to health care. In many cases the insurance company will dictate what health care you may or may not receive instead of your doctor making that decision. They hold the purse strings and they decide if they want to pay for your treatment or not.
Then there are the deductibles and co-payments that go along with health insurance. Does a person who is so poor that they can't afford health insurance to begin with actually benefit here? What about someone who is unemployed? Can they afford these out of pocket expenses? Probably not, so even with government funded insurance they will probably still not seek out health care because they can't afford these expenses. Big help huh?
Who really stands to benefit from such a program? Well, the politicians stand to benefit because they can point to this tax dollar funded program and say they are doing something for the people. The insurance companies really stand to benefit as they will rake in billions of additional dollars, tax dollars, from such a program. I'm sure they are behind such a program 100% as it will line their pockets for decades to come.
While this may be a nice sounding, feel good program in the end it will really only benefit a small portion of the population who stand to save some money on health insurance they probably already have and who can afford the out of pocket expenses that go along with it. And it will benefit the already wealthy insurance companies by ensuring huge profits for years to come, at the expense of the taxpayers of course.
Yes, a lack of affordable health care is a problem in this country, but those who support a program such as this need to set aside the feel good emotional view for a moment and take a little time to realistically examine the true effects and implications of such a program. It may sound good on the surface but in reality it's a huge boondoggle that will only serve to line the pockets of the insurance companies without being much help to those who really need it the most.