“In this world nothing can be said to be certain but death and taxes.”
That’s as true today as it was when Benjamin Franklin first wrote it in 1789, especially since so much of the nation’s health care bill is now paid through taxation.
Europeans and Canadians are more aware of the link between health care and taxation than Americans since their tax burden is greater than ours, largely because of single-payer health care systems.
As a rule, most Americans earn enough to pay all state, local and federal taxes by May 16 each year. In Canada, it takes until the end of June and, in Europe, July 24 is the magical date.
As hard as it may be for Mainers to believe, there are greater tax burdens than ours and the cost of single-payer systems should frighten us all. We have become nearly blind to that fear, though, because the dread of being uninsured is greater than the fear of raising taxes.
Business owners like Lewiston’s Christian “Matt” Graham are right to worry about the health of their families and employees and to be frustrated at their inability to provide adequate coverage.
Americans consider health care a basic right, and coverage for every American seems a reasonable goal. But, it is bad public policy to establish a tax-dependent single-payer system, especially at the state level and especially since Congress seems hell bent on adding a tax-paid prescription drug benefit to Medicare without forcing price reductions.
A single-payer health care system is no solution. Erasing regulations that confine health insurance risk pools within state borders is.
Health insurance – which equates easy access to care – is regulated state by state and consumers, individual and commercial, have limited choices among carriers. There are often restrictions on payments for care obtained out of state, and there are now consequences for physicians who aid patients in buying prescriptions outside our borders.
It’s a restrictive and suffocating system.
Pharmaceutical companies view Americans as one enormous pool of customers and cite interstate commerce protections to fight all restrictions placed on sales.
Consumer health care choices are limited by state, but health care industrial giants are not similarly restricted. That’s a lopsided and consumer-unfriendly approach to health care.
It limits competition and drives up the cost of insurance and health care. Large pools limit risk and reduce costs, as evidenced by more competitive national pricing for homeowners and automobile insurance.
Alessandro Iuppa, superintendent of Maine’s Bureau of Insurance, once said that it would be too complicated to erase the state-by-state health insurance regulations and start over, assuming the cooperation of all 50 states, to create a national consumer pool.
OK. But, as tumultuous as that may be, it has to be better than consumers’ growing fear of getting sick and not being able to pay for care. And it would be better than raising taxes to fund single-payer care.
jmeyer@sunjournal.com
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