BuckeyeBlog

The folks at the liberal advocacy group Families USA came out with a report yesterday contending that one in five Ohio families are paying upwards of 10% in health care costs every year. While an interesting statistic, this does nothing to actually illuminate the health care debate. The report focuses solely on health care spending and not on what consumers get in return for that spending. I agree that spending 10% of your income in health insurance you don’t use or on health care you don’t need is too much. But if people are spending 10% of their income on health care that saves their lives, that’s a different matter.

On the general issue of health care spending, if one thinks that spending 10% of one’s income on health care is too much, then there are two ways to address it: lower health care costs or make someone else shoulder more of the burden. The Families USA report has few recommendations to lower cost. In fact, some of the things it supports will actually increase cost. For instance, when lamenting the high cost of health insurance premiums, the report also complains that insurers are not regulated strictly enough. In reality, one of the reasons health insurance costs so much is because government regulations drive up the price and reduce competition.

Families USA has little desire to address the root causes of health care costs. Instead, it wants a third party to shoulder more of individual’s health care costs. But this merely shifts the problem. That health care must be paid for by someone. And if Families USA has its way, the taxpayer will be paying more of it. It’s an old cliche that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but Families USA does not seem to realize this.

Interestingly, their chart detailing the spending habits of the “typical family” notes that taxes account for almost 19% of the family’s income. Perhaps we should be working to reduce that typical family’s tax burden so that if unexpected medical expenses do arise, they will have more of their own money to spend on it.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 4:55 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.