Obamacare not socialist enough

I’ve tried to give Obamacare credit for trying.

It is the first major health care reform in the U.S. since Medicare was passed in 1965.

Though some of the country’s most vulnerable workers (part-time, seasonal and minimum wage employees) are worse off because of the legislation, 27 million more
Americans are insured because of the Affordable Care Act.

Providing access to free birth control is an important provision that will improve the well-being of many families in the long-term.

But the firing of 800 IU Health employees is just a glimpse of how imperfect these reforms are.

Many of Obamacare’s shortcomings — that it is expensive, that it hurts small businesses, that it has caused people to lose hours if not their jobs — are results of the exceptionally American idea that health care should be provided by employers.

Forcing American citizens to rely on their employers for health insurance is regressive, inefficient and inhumane.

Take a walk down memory lane to 2010, when Obamacare was working its way through the legislature. President Obama’s hair was just starting to gray, Syria wasn’t in the throes of civil war and Kimye was but an impossible dream.

During deliberations the idea of a public option, which would compete alongside private insurers, was decried as “socialist,” and we were left with the tax-like mandate of the ACA pretending to understand today.

But for truly universal coverage we need a public option.

Government health insurance would be bad for private health insurers, yes, but good for every other business in the U.S. — and for every citizen.

Removing the responsibility to provide health insurance from businesses would allow the great American car companies and social media start-ups to just worry about making great cars and streamlined websites.

Of course there would still be expenses in the form of taxes, but the switch would free up another valuable commodity — time.

Even with Obamacare, about 21.6 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2018.

Part of the problem with U.S. health care is costs are arbitrarily decided by hospitals with the expectation that they will be bargained down by insurers. But uninsured Americans don’t have the clout to bargain down inordinate prices, and they are forced to pay through the nose for even the simplest procedures.

Putting the government behind that 21.6 million suddenly gives them a whole lot of clout. And a tangible connection between government and health care would spur more Americans to vote for price restrictions from hospitals.  

No more colonoscopies that cost $2,000 in Baltimore and $8,000 in Austin.

One uninsured American is too many.

No one should suffer treatable or curable illnesses and live in a country that prides itself on its medical professionals. No one should be blamed for being uninsured just because they can’t find a job or they can’t pick up enough hours to qualify.

Too many Americans deny themselves proper medical care because they can’t afford it. This dearth of preventative care leads to expensive treatments for conditions that could have been avoided.

Health care in the U.S. is broken.

Obamacare just scratches the surface because it refuses to challenge the foundational flaw of our system.

­— casefarr@indiana.edu
Follow columnist Casey Farrington on Twitter @casefarr.