So, according to members of the health care industry and the Republican party, the best possible health care system for America is the one we currently have. If it wasn't so sad, I'd be laughing. You want to see what the free market system does to health care services? Wait until you read the letter I got in the mail from our hospital.
A little background:
Our three year old son has challenges that we are working on. He has speech delays and some fine motor skill problems that he is making great progress on, but there is plenty of work to still be done. He's enrolled in a special pre-school that is great where he recieves speech and occupational therapy daily as well as other normal pre-school activities. That type of daily service made a huge impact on his progress, but as it's the summer and school is out, we looked into other options for him.
We take him to a pre-school/daycare type place three mornings a week (our main goal is the social interaction with his peers) and he's going to some other programs as well. Since he is currently not recieving the daily speech therapy that he gets during the school year, we are paying for it on our own through our local hospital. It ain't cheap. And we won't even get into the issue of fighting our insurance company regarding them paying for any of it. Apparently, my three year old son's development and treatment isn't cost effective for them to pay.
My problem with the free market approach to health care can be illustrated by the following paragraph in a letter I received from the hospital:
"In late 2006, [Hospital Name] conducted a routine market review to look at our costs to provide services. The review also aligned Speech Therapy services with all other Clinical Therapy services (Occupational and Physical Therapy). Based on these reviews, it was decided that pricing for Speech Therapy services would need to be increased.
We understand this change may affect your ability to pay, especailly if you self pay."
In other words, 'We realized we could get away with charging you more, and you have to pay it since there aren't any other major speech therapy centers around.... so, tough."
Yeah, free market health care.
Now, my wife and I can and will continue to pay for our son because we can. But what about those families out there that can't afford it? If my family's income level was lower, I would have to make the decision between my son's well-being and putting my family in a bad financial situation.
That's the free market health care system for you. When the primary motivation in the health care industry is profit instead of the health of the individual - we have a big problem.