Is It Really Health Care Reform?

We recently received a letter from Mark V. Mertel, Chairman of Partners Rx, with his thoughts on the health care legislation that has been passing through Congress. He expressed that the real problem is that Congress does not want to tackle health care reform; instead they are going after the health insurance industry in an effort to claim that they have reformed health care in America.

Health care costs in America are high and is an issue that needs to be addressed. Health care costs can be alleviated by solutions that Congress does not want to tackle, nor will the public accept. Solutions such as paying a lower reimbursement rate to providers, reducing health care services provided, offering an around-the-clock health care environment with long line and fewer providers are not up for debate. Creating tort reform to reduce the cost of law suits and malpractice insurance would be blocked by legal lobbyists.

Instead of creating reform that will lower the cost of health care, Congress is taking on the insurance industry by introducing a public option plan, a costly initiative that does not fix the current issue – health care costs – and creates competition under false restraints.

What exactly will the public option do? It does not alleviate the spiraling cost of health care coverage. The plan does not change the delivery or lower the costs of health care. It does artificially lowers premiums that over time, will force the government to increase taxes to pay for the difference between the cost of the public option plan and true health care costs.

Tax-payers will not be the only ones effected. Congress claims introducing a government-run public option plan will increase competition among health care insurers and lower current premium rates. Insurance companies currently have only a slim profit margin of 2.2% on average. With profit margins so low already, how are private insurance companies supposed to survive if they are forced to lower premiums to keep competitive?

In the end, introducing a public option plan eliminates free-market competition by forcing private insurers to drop their rates till they can no longer remain competitive and must shut down or ask for government help, much like the automotive industry. This would leave only a government-run health insurance plan – the public option plan – to act as the sole insurer for everyone in the country.

We must address Congress to let them know that private insurers already work in a competitive environment. Private health insurance carriers have decades of experience running plans more efficiently and effectively than any government-run public option plan could be run.