This is Bulls**t: The Healthcare Debate

The current health care debate in America is intellectually and morally bankrupt.

Can I be any more clear than that?

The only issue that we should be discussing is how to change the trajectory of health care costs, which are already untenable and continuing to climb.

Instead, we have people talking about everything but.

Let’s break it down:

“I don’t want the government between me and my doctor.”

This statement is what’s known amongst logicians as a “flaming pile of horseshit.” Also known as a straw man.

We’re in this mess because we have insurance companies between us and our doctors.

Railing against the public option doesn’t fix the status quo—and fixating the conversation there does a disservice to the many other options we have to experiment with.

“People in Canada have to wait months for specialized services.”

That Sucks with a capital S. Nobody wants rationing here. But you know what? We already have rationing here.

When I fractured my wrist, despite a clear break and obvious needed remedy, I had to sit down with a specialist we had to call my insurance company together, because my doctor knew that if I didn’t answer every question exactly right, I would be denied coverage.

That’s rationing. The only reason I got what I needed was because I can afford the copay for a doctor who keep insurance specialists on staff.

But long term, given a choice between protecting the privileges of money and ensuring basic needs for the masses, basic needs has to win. It has to. Society falls apart otherwise. Just ask Marie Antoinette.

“We can’t afford it!”

Another logical fallacy. The proposed changes to health care concentrate and make transparent many of the costs we already bear. The difference is, now the cost is hidden, spread across $150 blood tests and $1,400 ER visits for stitches.

What’s missing: “How do we make health care competitive?”

1. Change the way the insurance market is structured. Specifically, take away state-wide monopolies (which everyone, from free-market adherents to social liberals, can agree make for poor service and bloated costs).
2. Address malpractice. Afraid that award limits will translate into doctors running amok? Get ready for this: (1) doctors who run amok exist independent of award limits. (2) In the current system, we actually reward attorneys for running amok at the expense of good doctors. Since attorneys add no value intrinsically to the health care profession,* I’d much prefer a system that limits their involvement and lets us focus on rogue doctors through licensing requirements.

*Protecting patients may preserve the integrity of the system, but does not add value.

Upshot

We’re up a creek on this one, and the current debate has been purposefully misdirecting that anger away from real solutions.

Now we’re going to get a cram-down solution that represents less than our best, because those with the power to help were too busy obfuscating the real issues to apply their talents to useful ends.

Jason Seiden is Co-founder and CEO of Ajax Social Media, a training company that shows professionals how use social media to work more effectively.