I’ve known Scott Kamena going back to College Republican days of long ago.  These days, Scott is an accomplished optometrist in Livermore, in the East Bay Area (that probably has a lot more ‘gravitas’ to it as a reunion than being, say, a website publisher).  Anyways, Doctor Kamena has penned a thoughtful and comprehensive commentary centered around the current health care debate taking place in Sacramento, and I am very pleased to present it below.  It’s a bit lengthy, but this is a difficult subject, requiring more ‘column inches’ to really approach in a meaningful way.  I should probably mention that Scott has decided to throw his hat into the (crowded) ring, to replace GOP Assemblyman Guy Houston (click on his ad on the right to find out more about that).

Health Care Plans Miss The Point
by Scott Kamena 

The legislature’s effort to reform health care and provide better access to Californians is admirable and necessary.  But while Democrats focus on “financing schemes” (read: new taxes) for insurance for everyone, none of the plans being considered address the real reason health care is sick: it’s outrageously expensive.  Health care costs in California are skyrocketing and any health care reform that doesn’t address this fact is worse than worthless.  It’s downright harmful.

Business owners were practically giddy this year when they found out their health insurance premiums would only go up by an average of 7.7% nationally and 8.7% on California.  Why? Well, after health insurance rates had risen by as much as 15.8% per year in California each of the last few years, just slowing the increase feels like a rate cut.  But it isn’t really a cut, and it still hurts.  Employers used to cover their employees’ premiums completely.  Now, unthinkably high rates have forced businesses to make employees pay ever-higher shares of these premiums. That is, of course, if the company hasn’t cut its health plans altogether—an increasingly common reality.

Please hear this and believe it:  too many Californians lack health insurance for no other reason than because it’s too expensive.  Small businesses can’t buy it for their employees, big businesses move out of state to keep from paying for it, and average families trying to get by just can’t afford it.  Any attempt to increase the number of people insured without reigning in healthcare costs will just make this problem worse.  Let me explain why.

Californians view healthcare as a right.  It’s up there with the freedom of speech, the pursuit of happiness, and even eating and breathing.  Californians want to be able to choose their own doctor, have convenient appointments, be tested with the latest diagnostic equipment, get a second opinion when the diagnosis is grave, receive the most advanced treatments, and take the latest and greatest drugs.   And they want it all for free.  I don’t blame them.  I want that, too.  I especially want it for my children.  The problem is the free part.  Modern healthcare is expensive.

And it’s getting ever more expensive.  is at the cutting edge of medical and pharmacological technology.  There’s a reason people come here from and the (where healthcare is free) to have heart surgery.  But the research involved with those advances is extraordinarily costly—not to mention the liabilities associated with bringing new technology to market (they are essentially unlimited)!

Insurance does nothing to lower these costs.  Quite the opposite, it increases them.  When insurance is paying the bills, there is no incentive on the part of the doctor or the patient to control costs.  When your life is at stake, money should be no object.  But what about when you have the common cold?  Should you really be taking the latest antibiotics that cost $10 per pill?  (Viruses that cause colds are immune to antibiotics, but doctors often prescribe them because patients like to have some kind of treatment).  In my own line of work, eye drops for allergies can cost anywhere from $6.00 to $75.00 for a 5 milliliter bottle.  Antibiotics vary from $8.00 to $85.00 per bottle.  If someone has a corneal ulcer (a sight-threatening condition) then I will prescribe the best.  But if they have a run-of-the-mill bacterial conjunctivitis (a common, usually self-limiting condition), do I really need to break the bank?  Having insurance pay for it makes it tough to say, “No,” to a patient with a red, painful eye staring at me in my chair.  It also eliminates any incentive for patients to shop for doctors based on price.

**There is more – click the link**

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 4th, 2007 at 12:00 am and is filed under Blog Posts.