Healthcare Debate

Dear Sen. Cruz,

I have read your form letter on the healthcare debate.

You have gone to some length to describe the unworkability of the poorly designed healthcare law known as Obamacare, and pointed out your efforts to defund it, including your filibuster on the floor of the Senate.

You say that you will fight for a fresh start for healthcare reform, designed to meet the needs of the American people.

It is at this last point where I have strong disagreement. The federal government should not be in the healthcare insurance business nor applying controls to insurance companies, other than standard requirements of reasonable integrity.

The discussion is not really on availability of healthcare. It is only on the availability of healthcare insurance. However, there is also no question that as government becomes involved in healthcare insurance, it also affects the quality of healthcare.

Healthcare itself is a maintenance program for continuing life. This is similar to a maintenance program for continued operation of your automobile, or a maintenance program on your home. All of these expenses should be a part of the family budget. The only aspect that needs consideration for insurance is a catastrophe.

Examples of catastrophes are totaling a motor vehicle, your house burning down, being sued for a million dollars, or having to undergo extensive treatment for cancer or similar disease. Those catastrophes can be covered by insurance, which require payment of premiums. An alternative is to personally assume the risk. That is, if a catastrophe occurs without insurance, we will bear the consequences or hope that someone else will pay for it. In any case, it should not be up to government to decide whether an individual be required to carry catastrophe insurance or any other form of insurance.

Therefore, it is ridiculous to consider life maintenance items, such as pregnancy pills, as requiring insurance. There may be some people who can't afford even those simple costs, but that is then a matter of welfare and can be handled as such. Catastrophes can be handled on the same basis. For those who are unable to afford premiums for catastrophic insurance, we can handle that in a minimal way with welfare. There should also be a stigma to welfare, such that those people who receive it are encouraged to get off it by finding some work which will give them enough compensation to pay for their necessities, including health care.