A Healthcare Plan Focused on the Needy

This morning NPR's Morning Edition did a piece on McCain on Healthcare.

McCain wants to encourage people to manage their own healthcare and "to rein in" spending on Medicare and Medicaid.

It's great to encourage people to manage their own healthcare. Having healthcare linked to people's jobs benefits no one. It gives businesses an extra task unrelated to its business. It creates complications for employees when changing jobs.

The case for reducing government health care programs is less clear. Having something like Medicaid, but not necessarily in its current form, is very important. It's unacceptable to have a segment of the population that is near or below the federal poverty line (around 20%) and therefore unable to afford medical care. Not only is it a moral issue, but it creates problems for the healthcare system when people unable to afford care turn up in the emergency room once their problem has become critical.

It's unfortunate that our choices in politics are

• Republicans who rightly talk about getting government out of healthcare but don't address what will be done for the poor
  
• Democrats who rightly want to help the poor but wrongly want to do it by expanding government involvement

No matter how you slice it politically, around 20% of the population will have a hard time affording basic healthcare. Another 20% can afford it, but can't afford to help other people. The remaining 60% has the ability to help others and absolutely must do it if we want a society where access to basic healthcare is universal.

Critics will say that fewer than 60% has the ability to buy their own healthcare and to subsidize others. If that's true, we're in trouble because that's the bulk of society. There simply aren't enough rich people to pay for everyone else's services.

It's in politicians' interest to convince people that if they jigger the system just right, somehow we can provide healthcare to the poor without paying additional money. It's similar to the dieting industry trying to convince people there are ways to lose weight that don't involve exercising away more calories than they consume.

It's so important, IMHO, to reduce the government's influence in the average person's life that I might prefer McCain's despites its lack of an aggressive plan to help the poor.