syrinx

Dear President-Elect Obama,
This is Bob. This week, I've got to choose my health options plan for 2009 for my family - Just one of the freedoms of choice I enjoy from not living in Canada, spending 30% of my income on health insurance. I see you are trying to make some decisions on how to provide affordable health care for all of your family - you know, the 300 or so million that you just sort of married into for the next 4 years. And you've asked for my advice...So, how do we choose a health care plan for our family, the United States of America?

• Plan A that covers every one in the family or Plan B that leaves some family members without coverage?
• Plan A that lets you choose your own doctor or Plan B that restricts who and where you can receive medical care?
• Plan A that doesn't deny coverage for pre-existing conditions or Plan B that denies coverage for pre-existing conditions?
• Plan A that charges the same rates for everyone or Plan B that charges higher rates based on how likely you are to actually need medical care services?
• Plan A that has been shown to be more cost-effective and deliver better medical outcomes on a wide range of measures or Plan B that has been shown to cost more out of pocket and has ranked lower on comparable scales of performance?
• Plan A that minimizes paperwork and administrative overhead or Plan B that increases complexity and paperwork, with about 25% of its cost eaten up by this aspect?

As a family, we would clearly choose Plan A, single payer health care, which has proven to be successful in delivering quality, affordable health care to Canada, France, Germany, Italy, the Scandinavian countries, the UK, and elsewhere.
We would choose Plan A for the sake of our children, for the sake of the unborn in need of adequate prenatal care, and for the insurance against some unforeseen event that might, under Plan B, drive us into bankruptcy.
As a nation, Plan B is doing that already, and failing to provide adequate health coverage as well.
We need to make our health care policy decisions made in the same way we would make them as if we were choosing a health care insurance policy for our family.
My concern is that the CEO for Plan B has been making the decisions for us, and his decision is based on what is best for his salary and bonus package, and all we are getting offered is Plan B or no coverage at all.
I want to choose the best health insurance plan for my family.
Plan A or Plan B?
You decide.
I gotta go figure out how much I can afford to spend on health care insurance and still have enough to pay for my medical bills that aren't covered by the insurance, so I can figure out which coverage option to opt into - the one that costs a little but doesn't cover anything, or the one that costs a lot but you still have to pay something on everything.
Best regards,
Bob

tags: humor health care decisionmakingprocess logic choices