The High Cost of Health Care

Health care reform is certainly a hot topic in our country, especially today as new health care legislation is about to take effect. Many opponents of the new law claim that they are concerned with how the new bill will be funded to support the millions of new patients which will be added to the health care pool. They posit that the health care system will not be financially secure enough to support the new influx of patients, and thus, it will collapse under its own weight. This is a claim that was also put forward by presidential hopeful Mitt Romney, who vowed to repeal ObamaCare should he win office.They also claim that ObamaCare will raise premiums and taxes on the middle class, with the burden of providing for the masses of newly insured patients. This has been one statement in particular that has caused much backlash from Americans who are already under a lot stress from a failing economy.They fear that the new legislation will cause even more strain, and in revolt have vehemently denied the reform bill. Now although ObamaCare is certainly not free from its own set of issues, there is one important piece of the puzzle that opponents of ObamaCare are not considering. Under the current health care system we have in our country, we are already paying high taxes and premiums to support the uninsured. As Nancy Hudson, the executive health care director of the Charlotte Health Care Clinic explains, the 30 million uninsured Americans we have in our country are in desperate need of health care, and a good portion of the people she sees in her clinic are below the national poverty level. This means that they cannot afford health care, and thus, both preventative and routine medical care are not available to these individuals. Henceforth, the majority of their doctor visits are to the emergency room, which equates to high costs and dire prognoses for these individuals. In turn, these high costs are then passed down to us in the form of high taxes and raised insurance premiums. So, as we see, even if ObamaCare is non-existent, we still have this major issue on our hands. The difference however, is that with Obamacare these individuals can get preventative and routine care, which will in turn help them to become healthier, and avoid costly and life threatening emergency room visits. Moreover, Hudson also points out that the majority of the individuals currently without health care are the working class, who are unable to work and provide for their household if they become ill. This is yet another issue that opponents of the new reform bill may not be considering.The fact of the matter is, that ObamaCare is not a cure-all to the current health care system, and it has a long way to go before all the potential issues with the bill are worked out. However, we as a country need to also realize that things are not going so well with the status quo. In short, we need new health care legislation, and one that is willing to provide health care to those who need it the most must be commended for the initiative it is undertaking.