Let’s consider Healthcare this January, 2024, the Year of the Vote
We’ve done it again. Open season on healthcare — choosing a plan, believing we have power over our health.
Our American history of health insurance has great impact on our current healthcare accessibility. Through the 1950s and 1960s, health insurance evolved into an institution unto itself with the advance of “Employee Benefits”. As the national corporate structure grew, paying employees with “benefits” became an indispensable part of business costs. Benefits are business expenses which are not taxable in the same way as a paycheck. Corporations save money on benefits, so they give generously.
Corporate employees are not everyone, in any country. America has lots of self employed people and lots of employees whose employers find ways to give them just enough paid hours to benefit the business. But not enough to require the business to offer benefits — in this way, health insurance is not available for everyone who works and participates in our society.
Health insurance companies, driven by cost calculations, decide how, where and when a policy holder can get medical care. Such companies are making medical decisions based on economic evidence. Whatever the relationship between costs and statistics of the efficacy of various medical treatments, an insurance company is effectively…
