Dr. Shawn’s Blog

The Healthcare Debate: Two Questions That Must Be Asked

October 8, 2009 on 12:44 pm | In General Posts | No Comments

I blogged about some of my solutions to improve our health care system before.  I thought I’d share a few more ideas with you on this as well.

It seems to me that there are two questions that must be asked before we can even try to find a solution to the healthcare issue, yet no one seems to be asking these all-important questions.

The first question: is the healthcare system broken?

Second question: where in the Constitution does the federal government derive its power to have any say about health care or do anything about it?

I’ll tackle the second question first since it is the easiest one to answer.  The federal government has NO power given to it in the Constitution to have any say regarding health, insurance, or how I take care of myself.  As a result, the federal government should have little if any say in drafting policy regarding our healthcare system.  If any government should have a say in this, it belongs to the states, cities, and municipalities.

Regarding the first question: I would argue that while the healthcare system is in need of “fixing up,” it is not so broken that we must scrap the current system we have and start anew.

While many in Washington state that this debate is about making sure that everyone has equal access to health care, one only needs to look at the actions of our politicians in Washington to know that this is not true.  This is purely and simply about giving the federal government way too much power over an important aspect of our lives.

If we’re really concerned about giving everyone access to health care (and by the way, anyone can walk into an emergency room or county hospital and receive some type of health care, although it’s not ideal health care,) this is very simply remedied.  Following up on an idea I proposed several months ago, states can easily administer vouchers for people whose income falls below the poverty line to help them access health care. Similar to the food stamp program which allows lower income families to provide basic nutrition for families, a similar voucher program would allow families to access basic health care whenever needed.

This is a simple and common sense approach which would easily go a long way towards correcting current imbalances that exist when people of all incomes try to access healthcare.  Because it is so simple and involves common sense, you’re not likely to see this seriously considered as a solution to one of the few problems involving our healthcare system.