Maybe It’s the Smoke in the Room that is Fogging Our Vision

So when last we left our hero, Health Care Reform, and were looking at how the proposed reform would transform our health care system into a more affordable and overarching version of itself, what was the approach that we were taking? Oh, yes; first and foremost, we seem to be relying upon the health care insurance industry to “just make it happen, because I told you to” as the tried and true governmental method to solve big, complex, society-spanning, and life-effecting issues. You know the same method that has produced the outstanding governmental successes of the past; like a simple and easily understood income tax system;, or a safe and secure financial and banking system;, or a robust and well-maintained power-grid, air-traffic control system, national highway system; or a well-funded Social Security system, No Child Left Behind educational policy; or a set of practical climate control and environmental policies that mesh well with business and industrial policies. In consideration of the admirable effectiveness that the government has demonstrated with these and hundreds more of our legislatively produced programs, it’s a wonder we are even still around working on ways to improve the health care system that we and the Government have created to date. Because let’s all remember that the Government has helped craft and guide the insurance and medical health care infrastructure that we are now so desperately seeking a new and improved version of from no less an accomplished group than Congress.

Now don’t get all depressed and surrender all hope that we are lost in a political wasteland filled with the usual thieves, con-artists, and thugs; or that we are doomed to a disastrous fate at the hands of those public-service, we know what’s best for you, party placating loyalist addlepated politicians. Yes we are dealing with Congress, so there are thieves aplenty; and we are faced with politicians armed with the intellectual weaponry equivalent of foam-rubber swords in an armored tank battle. But take heart, Americans have fought and succeeded against these forces in the past; and we may yet again prevail against them. We just need to remember that even in the bleakest days and the darkest nights brought on by these misguided and myopic members of Congress, that America has always had two beacons that have carried us through: self-interest and the profit motive.

With respect to Health Care Reform, it will be difficult for Congress to draft and pass any program that will be able to thwart or prevent Americans from seeking their own self-interest in health care matters. They can throw up bureaucratic battlements and lay down torturous mazes of red-tape; but these will not deprive us of our own drive and determination to seek the health care that we need for ourselves or our families. Because we are Americans, we will find ways to undermine the barriers that are erected, and find or open gaps through the walls meant to bar our way. The American spirit will not be diminished and will not be deterred by any policy or program set forth by either party regarding health care or any other aspect of our lives. As long as we remain a free and democratic society, we will advance in evolving those products, services and systems that we find will provide for our life, liberty and our pursuit of happiness.

The profit motive is less easily protected from the inadvertent meddlesome tinkering of a well intentioned Congress. Now I am not talking about the profit motive of the companies and groups that are bribing (I mean contributing to the political campaigns of) every House and Senate representative in the country. I mean the idea of a free-market profit motive protected from infringement by individual, group, company, mega-corporation, government or world-order. I mean the free right to seek better ways to offer products and services in the marketplace without interference and prohibition by others and to be rewarded for those efforts. To be properly compensated for the value that is added above that offered by others, particularly when the value added is equal or superior quality for the same or a lower price.

The reason that this is important to the Health Care Reform effort is that the best and most effective way to attain the very goals that Congress insists are desired is to build the profit motive into the very heart of the Health Care Reform bill. Congress has to learn what American businesses all start off knowing; that they will prosper if they offer a better and more affordable product/service than their competition. And if businesses are better off following the profit motive then everyone benefits along with them; since we get lower prices, better quality and more jobs. This is profit motive phenomenon feeds back upon itself and generates a vibrant and growing economy. You know that thing that made America great, seeking your own self-interest and profiting from it. The basics haven’t changed, but Congress apparently has forgotten that its job is not to tell everyone how to do things; rather Congress should be setting the goals and direction that we agree to take and to insure that there are rewards available and guaranteed to those who can get us to those goals.

Therefore the first patient that we have to look out for in reforming the health care system is profitability and the profit motive. And is it really that difficult to understand why a profit motive is essential to a successful affordable Health Care system in the United States?