15. February 2009 by student.

As many people do, I think the health care system in this country has serious problems. There are a number of potential solutions to this problem. We could move either to a free market system or to a single-payer plan, i.e., a government health care system. Our current system is neither of these systems, but rather a restricted market. I consider our current health care system to be a restricted market. By this I mean that the insurance industry is a group of profit-seeking firms, but consumers do not have free choice to switch between the market alternatives. Many of the people who defend the current system claim that a free market is best. However our current system is not a free market. Many of the problems in our current health care system are a result of the restrictions in this market. Consumers cannot register their discontent with their insurance plans because it is difficult to switch plans. Because of this difficulty, plans can fail to provide quick resolution of claims, good information, or consistent policy because customers are tied in to their current plans through their employers and through the difficulty of switching plans.Considering our current system of a restricted market, one of the simplest solutions to this problem would be to have a free market for health insurance, so that people could “vote with their feet.” Making our system a free market would require forbidding insurance companies to give discounts to employers, making it easier for the employers to buy insurance than for their employees to do so. Health insurance should thus count as a tax deductible expense, even for people who take the standard deduction. It should also be illegal for insurance companies to discriminate based on a pre-existing condition when a person is switching plans (unless the condition is not covered by the original plan). Employers should not be allowed to force employees to accept “their” plan. They should be able to set price based on age, sex, weight (as compared to height), smoking, and other “controllable” risk factors.The government should require everyone to have insurance, and should give vouchers for the purchase of health insurance, good for a certain amount of money, which would be phased out with income. The government could also have a default plan into which people would be enrolled if they did not make any other choice. (National health insurance, however, seems to be politically unacceptable in this country, although it would probably be even better than any of the above solutions, although a very good free market system might be better than government health care.)A remaining question is how to handle people who try to cheat the system by switching plans when they become sick. It would be reasonable to allow plans not to cover preexisting conditions when the previous plan did not cover the condition, at least in a system where the state provided vouchers for a basic amount of health insurance and a default plan if the people did nothing. Such a default plan should choose to cover various treatments based on cost-benefit analyses of those treatments. Based on these analyses, it might determine that it would only pay up to a certain amount for a given treatment.

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15. February 2009 by student.

I don’t think I can recall a time I saw, or more clearly, observed society. Valentine’s Day in Naples. 5th Ave. At nineteen I can’t exactly say I was thrilled when I was told that I would spend the holiday with my grandparents. I figured since I live in their house and eat their food I couldn’t  really complain. Before we went out to eat this evening i distinctly remember my grandmother telling me that this was where I’d see all the “beautiful people” and that if I got a good education this is where I’d eat all the time. Now for some background, my grandparents own their own company and are what you would classify as white upper class. However, the night was unlike any other. We had reservations at a restaurant downtown with another couple, total five. We picked up the other two on the way downtown and the car ride seemed normal, we got dropped off, and the gentlemen parked the car while us three ( grandma, grandma’s friend and I ) looked about in the shops. That’s when I became aware of how quickly everything changed. It was like a competition the whole evening team one vs. team two. I swear to god; maybe it was me being two generations younger, maybe not. It got to the point where I wanted to hit my head against the wall. Here we are walking down fifth ave, all dressed up for the part, waiting for dinner. As soon as we got there the conversation between the men was competitive, each trying to be more politically correct, while my grandmother and her friend eyed women at the tables around us, complained about our seats, and rudely made fun of our waitress. I sat there for a total of two hours and thirty three minutes. With a sociologist’s mindset. I watched the waiters and the cooks. I watched the rich, and the richer. I watched for hours. I listened to the conversation, the way people were talking down to one another, the way the women in the restroom acted. It made me sick. When the bill came my grandfather thought the waitress messed, up his friend agreed and freaked out at the waitress. Turns out it was correct, and then the friend told my grandfather that he thought the bill was right all along and was just going on what my grandfather had assumed. ( my grandfathers friend all night long tried to make himself look better, by putting down others, trying to sound intelligent and so on…) But it wasn’t just the men, while my grandmother was trying on shoes, her friend pulled me aside, and told me they were hideous. ( seriously? who was she trying to gain approval from? why would you say that to your friends granddaughter?) I’m not sure if this post is going in the right direction, but I hope it’s kind of showing you what I saw. But so much happened it’s hard to put all the details, hopefully you’ve been somewhere like this and in a similar situation. The drive home was equally as bad, I sat there listening to them preach that all they needed was love, and money meant nothing. I couldn’t help but wonder what they were thinking.  Why they were trying so hard to out spend one another. Outsmart the other, and have stronger morals. Who’s approval are they seeking? Mine? Society’s? Seriously… anyone have you seen this?

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