Healthcare in America — The Next Conversation Part 6 – Wait a Minute – Video

Part 6 – Wait a Minute

We’ve spent a lot of time looking at what other countries have done, what we already have here in the United States, how our existing programs work and, in Part 5, how we currently pay for them. We’ve looked at Medicaid, Medicare and Veterans healthcare, and we’ve looked at the private insurance system that covers the enormous group of Americans who fall somewhere in the middle.

And after all that, I think I may have been looking at this from the wrong mountain.

I started this series thinking about what we would have to build to create healthcare for everyone. I was thinking about hospitals, doctors, nurses, insurance, government programs, funding and all the other pieces that would have to be assembled into some enormous new system.

Then I stopped and thought about it.

Wait a minute.

Maybe we already have most of it.

We have the hospitals, the doctors and the nurses. We have specialists, pharmacies, laboratories, physical therapists, rehabilitation facilities, mental health professionals and thousands of private clinics. We have an enormous medical infrastructure already operating in every part of the country. We have Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans healthcare already paying for medical care for millions of Americans, and we have private insurance covering millions more.

So perhaps the question isn’t whether America has the ability to provide healthcare.

Perhaps the question is who gets to use the system, and how do we pay for it?

That changes the discussion considerably.

The easiest and potentially most dangerous approach would be to design one enormous new system that covers everyone and replaces everything we currently have. It sounds good on paper, and I might have argued for exactly that when I started this project back in Part 1.

The more I learn, the less attractive that idea becomes.

We already have millions of people depending on Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans healthcare. Those systems aren’t perfect, but they are functioning systems, and people depend on them. I don’t think we should put those people at risk simply because we have decided that the system needs to change.

So rather than tearing everything down and starting over, what if we built the missing piece?

Medi for Everyone Else

I’m going to call it Medi for Everyone Else for now, because I haven’t thought of a better name and because the name explains the basic idea.

Instead of replacing Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans healthcare, we create another federal medical insurance program designed primarily for the people who currently depend on private insurance or have no insurance at all.

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In the long run, one comprehensive system might reduce administrative costs, eliminate some duplication and provide greater equality in coverage. But getting there in one giant leap would create an enormous opportunity for failure.

I’d rather see us take one step, make sure it works, take another step and keep going. Build it as a living program. Let it grow. Let it respond to the needs of the people it serves.

After all, if it is going to be healthcare for the people, then it should be something owned by the people.

It isn’t a gift from Washington.

It was never Washington’s to give.