by Mary Hale

Created on: December 30, 2009

America’s health care system is broken, and definitely needs an overhaul; but let’s look at this a bit more closely before we decide that nationalized health care really is the solution to our nation’s health care problems.  While at first glance, a nationalized health care system like our current government is proposing does sound like a good idea, there are many problems and issues involved that require a closer look, and also make it not such a perfect solution but rather another problem in an already troubled and broken system.

The two bills that are currently waiting to be reconciled are slightly different, and contain different provisions but lets take a look at the main ones in both of them combined.  First off there is the proposed “health care exchange” which in reality is a form of government run and controlled health care.  In theory it will create a sort of exchange where consumers can go to choose a health care plan that they can both afford and meets their individual needs.  This does not sound so bad at first, but with a bit more thought and investigation it is not as good an idea.

For example, the government will be able to offer a plan at a much lower rate than private insurance companies can afford to.  This fact alone will actually, in the long run, cause less competition and fewer choices for consumers because the companies that cannot afford to compete with the government option will eventually end up going out of business because they cannot compete against the lower cost options.

Another problem with this provision is the number of consumers who will opt to choose the cheaper government run option.  This will mean many more claims to that insurance company, and eventually higher taxes to the American public and higher insurance premiums to pay these claims.  This will be defeating the purpose of a low cost insurance plan.  The number of subscribers could also cause serious issues in health care quality and waiting lists for some medical procedures.  Again, defeating the purpose of the government run option by causing lower quality health care, and in turn causing more problems with an already broken health care system.

Another provision in the two bills that has some very detrimental possible side effects is the pre-existing condition clause.  It would prevent insurance companies from refusing to sell insurance to anyone with a pre-existing condition.  It

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