Senator Bob Corker Talks Politics and Healthcare

Monday (10/6) at SHOUTAmerica’s first leadership conference I had the pleasure of hearing Senator Corker brief the audience on his recent accomplishments in bi-partisan healthcare activities.

Here are his four opening points:
1.    Congress does little communicating across party lines – this needs to change
2.    30% of healthcare delivered is wasted, i.e. it does not actually help people get well/healthy
a.)  That directly translates to 5% of our GDP wasted
3.    800,000 Tennesseans and more than 45 million across the country do not have health insurance coverage
4.    Healthcare is not a right, rather a moral obligation
a.)  Everyone deserves access to affordable private healthcare

He was cautious to make the distinction between what Republicans are striving for (preservation of choice) and what Democrats are striving for (universal coverage).  Corker wants the best of both worlds.  He wants  to preserve choice while finding a way to cover everyone.

Throughout the hour and a half speech/discussion I had several points of contention/questions.

1. Is choice our number one priority when we have 45 million uninsured Americans, 9 million of which are children?
2. Should we be providing tax credits as an incentive to purchase health insurance coverage?
3. Should the federal government mandate health insurance coverage?
4. Should all health insurance be community rated?
5. Should we separate health insurance benefits from the employer?

Choice should never be our number one priority (should I never say never?).  We need to focus on increasing access, coverage, and quality, while simultaneously reducing costs.  Choice isn’t even in my top 3 priorities for healthcare reform.

The American government has used the tax-credit concept for years with respect to financial saving.  Despite the tax incentives, Americans still fail to reasonably save the money they earn.  Why would the concept be any different applied to healthcare?  Just because a $5000 per family tax-credit is issued does not mean people will purchase a policy costing $14,000.  That’s still $9000 left for a family to cover.

I still haven’t figured out all the reasons why health insurance coverage has not been mandated by the government. Obviously cost is one (look at the difference between auto insurance and health insurance, we are talking thousands of dollars).  But what are some other reasons, and possibly coverage should be mandated and subsidized by the government up to a certain % of the poverty level.

Community rating all health insurance would mean that risk would be spread equally over large groups of people.  If you have high blood pressure and high cholesterol you would pay the same as the same price as a healthy individual your age.  This could be a good thing if the price groups change/account for age, smoking, family size and location.  It certainly provides a way to increase coverage and reduce costs for high-risk groups.

Health insurance benefits have been linked to our employers for years.  Is this practice too entrenched in our culture to separate it?  No.  However, I think the idea has its pros and cons.

Pros:

1. Makes healthcare portable.  Individuals will no longer feel tied to their dreaded job due to health benefits.  Their coverage and chosen plan could be taken with them to any place of employment.
2. Leads to more individual responsibility.  An individual will have to better understand what they are purchasing.

Cons:

1. Less guidance on aggregating large numbers of people to spread insurance risk.
2. Decoupled benefits will reduce competitive advantages between employers. Not that this directly is a bad thing – but will we see employers giving employees the money in their pockets that they used to see by way of health benefits?

All and all I still haven’t figured out the details of my proposal for healthcare reform.  Fortunately Senator Corker seemed to have a solid “moderate” stance on the issue!