Freedom to choose is "what's so great about health insurance"

In today's L.A. Times, Michael Hiltzik writes "What's so great about health insurance." Here's my response:

To begin, this was one of the most disingenuous articles I've ever read. Hiltzik writes:

members of Congress, some of whom believe that the public option will give the government unwarranted power over healthcare, . . . all of whom enjoy government-provided healthcare that's a lot better than what most of us get.

This is largely untrue. Members of Congress (like other Federal employees) are enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefit Program ("FEHBP"). The FEHBP includes dozen of health insurance choices from straight insurance to HMO's. An analysis of this plan can be found at www.heritage.org/reseach/healthcare/bg1123.cfm.

For an extra fee ($300 for House Members, $600 for Senators, with another $2 million kicked in by taxpayers), Members of Congress get additional perks that could loosely be described as "public health care." There is a Member's only pharmacy in the Capitol and doctors on stand by in case someone busts a gut during a filibuster. They can get many diagnositic procedures without ever having to leave work.

But this plan, of course, is not the one they contemplate giving ordinary Americans. Congress has refused calls to enter the same plan they craft for us.

Hiltzik also writes:

So it's proper to remind ourselves what that American way entails. For if the insurers have proved anything over the last 15 years as the health crisis has gathered speed like an avalanche roaring downhill, it's that they're part of the problem, not the solution.

But the rising costs of healthcare are not created by insurance companies, but by underpayment in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements by the government (which is already a huge portion of health care dollars spent in the U.S.). This is the reason why hospitals charge $10 for a Tylenol tablet. I learned this while working for an oncology clinic for 5 years while in college, which raised its prices because the reimbursements it was getting from Medicare were too low (to which the government says take it or leave it - what's an oncology practice to do if it can't treat old people?)

Hiltzik saves his biggest whoppers for last:

Anyone whose condition is even slightly out of the ordinary knows the sinking feeling of entering health insurance hell -- pre-authorizations, denials, appeals, and days, weeks, even months wasted waiting for resolution.

Does anyone reading this actually know anyone who's had such an experience? I have a mother with post-polio syndrome, who doesn't report these problems even with her HMO. I had a daughter who was born three months premature (whose hospital bill reached almost 1 million dollars), but did not experience anything like this.

Hiltzik also resorts to phony straw man arguments where he says:

Their only alternative right now is the individual market, where insurers scrutinize applicants' medical histories, looking for reasons to turn them down or charge them exorbitant premiums. Have hay fever, asthma, a cholesterol pill prescription? Are you a woman of child-bearing age? You're virtually insurable at an affordable cost.

Is he kidding us? Denying insurance to women of child bearing age? Where is this happening? To whom? Denying coverage to people with hay fever? If this were true, almost no one would have coverage.

The Blue Dogs are not worried about being accountable to insurance companies, but to the voters in their districts, most of whom voted for McCain. Like Charles Krauthammer said about the public's rejection of the House's proposed health care reforms: "The dog won't eat the dog food."

The rank dishonesty of this article proves the arguments Hiltzik makes are pitifully weak. Single-payer is an attempt to socialize (either incrementally or all at once) one-fifth of the U.S. economy under the pretext of insuring the uninsured. I suppose using deceit to obtain universal health care is an example of the ends justifying the means.

What's so great about private health insurance? FREEDOM! If you don't like your insurance company, you can (usually) get another. But if you don't like the government health care, you'll probably have to do without or travel abroad.

So under the proposed plans, one has an unfettered right to an abortion in the first two trimesters, but cannot have an MRI unless the government says so. So what if your doctor doesn't think it's necessary (or maybe he does but the government doesn't)? It's not his body, but yours.