The Public Option

These days, that word 'public' is associated with Health Care Reform, and it's controversial. Particularly, it is associated with the concept that the government itself, as an alternative to the big corporation, should offer health care insurance.

To me, the idea of insurance seems simple.

First, there is a large crowd of people. Let's say it is 1000 people. Most of the time, most of the people will be healthy. Sometimes though, some of those people will be sick.

So. You determine the average medical costs of this group for a given time period. Let's say it is a year. Then, you divide that number by 1000. The resultant number represents the basic cost to each individual in the crowd, for one year, if all were to have health insurance.

Well, there may be a little more to it. All this money needs to be kept track of. We need administrators. And we need someone to tell the administrators what to do. We need managers. And of course, we need someone to tell the managers what to do. We need executives.

So far, the jobs of all of these people, all these administrators, and managers, and executives, could be performed by a couple of desktop computers. But let's pretend that's not true. Let's pretend we can't just buy a couple of Dells, hire an Admin, and be done with it. Let's pretend we need to hire 100 people, buy a building to put them in, maintain the building, etc. Fine. We will add that cost to our basic cost. It still seems fair.

It is a very simple, honest and straightforward concept so far. This is an oversimplified description, though. Two other factors complicate it a bit. For one, my description assumes that everyone in the crowd has plenty of money to pay. But what if they don't have enough money, or any money at all? Does the crowd have any responsibility, moral or otherwise, to these people? Does it come down to Give Us Money or Die? Stand and Deliver?

The other factor is the right to profit from every single activity that some believe is guaranteed by our political system, combined with the extreme and undue influence the big corporation has over our legislators. These issues are beyond the scope of this essay. Please accept that they exist. Suspend disbelief, if you must.

Now. A small but raucous group of taxpayers is vehemently opposed to Health Care Reform of any kind. Their reasons, they say, are purely ideological. They are intellectuals. They say Public Health Care would be socialistic, even communistic. They are patriots too, and so, hard-line capitalists. I wonder if they have really thought this through.

The Public School System is justified by the belief that we all benefit from an educated populace, whether we have ten children, or no children at all. Even those who hate children benefit, we are told. The tax burden is the same for all. I don't have a problem with this system. However, truth be told, it is a bit socialistic. A purely capitalistic system would only provide schooling for those who could pay. The more children you have, the more you pay. Every quarter too, the profit margin would have to increase. We might as well include the Public Library System, too.

And then there are our Public Services. Try to picture a strictly capitalist police and fire department. Being mugged or raped? House on fire? Which credit card will you be using today, sir?

Imagine, if you will, pure capitalism applied to the issue of national defense. It seems too ludicrous to contemplate. And yet, there are places in the world where people must rely on private security forces for their defense.

My point is that, any good idea can be taken to a ridiculous extreme, even capitalism. Further, we don't have pure capitalism now. Certain socialistic institutions are already part of our lives, and I don't think we would want to change this. If you don't realize that, you need to take another look. There is nothing whatsoever either patriotic or intellectual about allowing those of our friends and neighbors without enough money to be pauperized by health care costs, or worse, to die.