Musings of an Old World doctor about the New World healthcare marketplace.

Let The Thief No Longer Steal!  

Thoughts on jobs, wages and limiting health care costs.

“Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him work with his hands, so that your daily life wins the respect of others and so that you will not be dependent on anybody.^[1]”  Paul, a Jewish rabbi and early Christian apologist.

The Grinch may not have been able to steal Christmas, but someone or something has managed to steal the jobs, the economy, and even most common sense in the health care debate.  This month I want to help us look at these issues and see if we can find out who or what this “thief” is!  

Jobs will be a good starting place as we explore what works and what does not work (excuse the pun!)  Since currently most medical coverage is tied to work, let’s consider the consequences of health coverage being tied to work.  Here are some of the issues:

• The National Center for Policy Analysis, quoting Rich Lowry from the National Review^[2] , notes that while Texas created around 119,000 jobs from August 2009 to August 2009, California managed to pretty much cancel that out by losing 112,000 jobs in the same time period.  So how do we keep people at work?
• There are often unintended consequences to government actions.  The possibility of McDonald’s needing to cancel 30,000 limited benefit health plans that it makes available to its hourly staff is a clear example of this.  Apparently no-one had thought through that adjusting the medical loss ratios would impact so many people.  Of course waivers have now been given to McDonalds and many other major groups.  But what about those not given waivers.  Who decides who are the lucky winners or the unlucky losers in this massive national game of health coverage roulette?

What about the economy?  How can so many economists get it so wrong that trillions of dollars are “stolen” from the value of the economy, whether through equity/capital loss in the markets, or through government removing it from our pockets to typically squander it on non-revenue producing social engineering?

• Greed and arrogance seem to be at the heart of Wall Street’s part in the collapse of the economy.  They would do well to remember the words of Proverbs where it states, “Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.  Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, ‘Who is the Lord,’ or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God.^[3]”
• But doesn’t government tend towards the same arrogance when it always assumes that it (i.e. the elites) know best and should show us how to spend the results of our hard labor, rather than leaving those decisions in our hands.  Milton Friedman, a Nobel Prize winner in economics, called Adam Smith's Invisible Hand "the possibility of cooperation without coercion.^[4]"   I, for one, am grateful that the Tea Party movement is forcing politicians of all stripes to step back and seriously consider that maybe the apparently random action of people, when all added together, is a better regulator of the economy than all of the government’s interventions put together.  As Adam Smith famously said, “The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations.”  You don’t redistribute that by taxation but by example and by promoting the American Dream.

Well, what about the loss of common sense in the whole of the health care debate?  Again, I can’t think of a better way to put this than to quote a famous preacher, Dr. Adrian Rogers.  “Friend, you cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom.  And what one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government can’t give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody. And when half of the people get the idea they don’t have to work because the other half’s going to take care of them, and when the other half get the idea it does no good to work because somebody’s going to get what I work for, that, dear friend, is about the end of any nation.^[5]”

Isn’t it time that all of us catch these thieves and put them to work!

About the Author

The Karis Group is best known for the Patient Advocacy services that it provides to many DMPO and Limited Medical Benefit Plan (LMBP) members around the country. 

Tony is a passionate defender of all people’s right to access medical care, and their subsequent responsibility to see that the medical provider is adequately compensated for the valuable services rendered.  Recognizing that there will often be a tension between the value of the services received, and the ability of any specific patient to cover those costs, patient advocacy from The Karis Group provides a professional and dignified way for members of DMPO and LMBP to receive the help that they need when out of pocket expenses are mounting and benefits are running out!

Patient Advocacy from The Karis Group is also an invaluable part of various EAP programs.  Even when the employee may have adequate health insurance, there are often family members who are not fully covered.  Patient Advocacy provides quality help for employees and their families when medical bills are proving a serious distraction.

As well as his entrepreneurial activities with The Karis Group, Tony is also very involved in missions and church work around the world.  For more information on The Karis Group see www.thekarisgroup.com.

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[1]  Thessalonians 4:11

[2]  See http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/249868/texas-model-rich-lowry and http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=19962&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD.

[3]  Proverbs 30: 8-9

[4]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand

[5]  http://www.lwf.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lis_quote