Proposed health transparency bills bad medicine for Colorado
- May 1, 2018
President Obama is either misinformed or lying about health care. He said the “free market has not worked perfectly.” There’s a market, but it’s not free. It’s infested with harmful political meddling. One example is government’s favoring employer-provided insurance, a poison to affordable medical care and insurance.
READ MOREPaying for health care has been a problem since ancient times. In the Middle Ages, guilds collected funds to provide care for infirm members. In 1789, imitating the British, the U.S. Congress funded the Marine Hospital Service by taxing American seamen 20 cents a month.
As U.S. governments grew, they continued passing laws to regulate the kind of health coverage people could purchase. By 1960, most people with coverage got it through their employer. Plans provided by hospital monopolies controlled the coverage market. The true cost of health care was hidden from covered individuals. Vast spending increases were the result. The introduction of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965 made the situation worse. Finkelstein found that Medicare increased real hospital expenditure by 23 percent between 1965 and 1970. Extrapolating from the Medicare estimates suggests that the spread of health coverage may “explain at least 40 percent of the rise in real per capita health spending” between 1950 and 1990.[1]
READ MOREThe Obama administration has proposed a government-run health insurance plan generally referred to as a “public option.” Some believe that government can do a better job of running a health plan than private companies can. Others argue that a government-run health insurance plan will improve Americans’ health insurance choices.
READ MOREPrepare For More Expensive Medical Insurance: the Senate Finance Committee has approved Colorado House Bill 1293. The Denver Post claims that this bill would reduce your insurance premiums. Not so. They will increase.
READ MOREPoliticians cannot guarantee health care, but by trying they can create an unaccountable and toxic insurance monopoly. So beware of Colorado House Bill 1273, which will be heard by the House Business Affairs and Labor Committee on March 18. The Rocky Mountain News described this so-called “Colorado Guaranteed Healthcare Act” as a “Canadian-style, single-payer” bill. A recent survey finds that nearly one in four state House members advocate single-payer health care. Their support of such politically-controlled medicine is appalling.
READ MOREolorado House Bill 1256 would bring affordable insurance to thousands of Coloradans by allowing them to buy less-expensive policies available in other states (Health Care, Feb. 19).
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