A Dog's Life and Health Care

If you were told that your pet spaniel needed an operation to correct a badly damaged rear leg, and that operation would cost you $126 would you spend the money?   What if the choices involved were fixing the leg for that price, amputating the leg for $75, or doing nothing and letting the dog live in lame and painful conditions, or euthanizing the dog for $25?  Obviously, your choices would be dictated by three conflicting considerations: affection for the dog, compassion for his pain and the realities of your budget. 

            Now, suppose that the cost of repairing the leg was not $126, but $65,646.  In a way, this decision is easier, isn’t it?  That amount of money represents such an obvious difference in choices for the family that, while you may not want your dog to suffer, you know that you are going to make a hard choice that does NOT include repairing the leg.  That choice has priced itself out of the equation.  Like it or not, a second option is going to be your only option. 

            The realities of the budget are not inconsiderable.  Nor are they free from emotional investment.  Spending in one are means deprivation in another.  Imagine telling your children that the you will send the oldest to an expensive and prestigious college, because they are extremely intelligent, but the rest of the children will have to finance their own education because the entire education budget has been spent.  There isn’t enough money to go around.  Your decision may be defensible, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be painful.  That doesn’t mean it won’t have repercussions.  And it doesn’t mean you won’t regret your choice somewhere down the line.   

We are now facing that same problem with health care in this country. 

The numbers I used in my analogy of an injured pet are the numbers that accurately reflect the cost of health care changes in the United States.  In 1962 the United States started tracking the amount of money the federal government was spending on health care.  In that year we spend $2.3 Billion, which was only 2.1% of the budget.  The $126 represents 2.1% of the median income in that year.  The $65,646 represents the increase of 521 times (!!!) that has occurred in our health care costs in just 55 years.  The money that our present Congress is talking about is now $1.2 Trillion and represents 31% of our budget.   We are now spending almost 1/3 of the federal budget providing health care.   That is twice as much as defense spending and even beats social security outlays. 

Have people become that much sicker in the space of my adulthood? No.  They have gotten older.  Half of all medical spending goes to those 55 and older, though they represent on one quarter of the population.  This is only going to get worse.  We have also expanded what we, as a society, define as the “right” of health care.  Does everyone deserve emergency room services?  That sounds like an easy “yes.”  Does everyone deserve a free breast augmentation, nose job or tummy tuck for strictly cosmetic reasons?  I would get an argument on saying that one is an easy “no.”  And don’t even get me started on fertility treatments for welfare recipients or sex changes for those who just can’t seem to play the hand they were dealt!

We need a discussion on health care that uses numbers instead of emotions.

Keep the faith.