Health Care / Medicine

Of All The Dumb Ideas...

A health care system built upon the default concept that employers should be entrusted to provide quality health insurance is galactically stupid!

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Confused Cartoon DoctorLook, it’s probably not my job to dive into the dumpster fire that is healthcare policy. But, let’s face it, most law firms, particularly those in small towns and cities — at which the vast majority of us in the legal world work — are small businesses. I will not purport to know much about what goes into running them. In my orbit, that is done by braver and more capable individuals. Nor do I purport to have a working mastery of healthcare policy, which, according to our President, nobody knew would be so complicated.[1] But over my years of paying attention to the provision of health insurance at the national level and at the far more micro level of our office, I have reached one inexorable conclusion:

A health care system built upon the default concept that employers should be entrusted to provide quality health insurance is galactically stupid! I mean Kardashian stupid. No, not quite bad enough, Terry Bradshaw level stupid. No, still not quite bad enough. This concept is the functional equivalent of what happens when the love child of the Earnest movies and Ace Ventura 2 is sheltered from all education for 20 years and repeatedly made to listen to nothing but Barbie Girl from Aqua and Rick Perry’s autobiography on tape.

To begin with, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we live in an era in which the average American will have 12-15 different employers in their lifetime. As we work longer, and as the job market grows increasingly dynamic and volatile, that number is predicted to grow. If, as both sides of this debate yammer on about, it is important to quality care that we maintain consistency in our providers and plans, why the hell pin the ability to pay for that care on such an inconsistent portion of people’s lives? It’s like setting the nuclear launch codes based on the name of the Cleveland Browns Quarterback. You’re setting something that is of utmost importance and which should be immediately and automatically known[2], based on a variable that will change again and again.[3]

Also, who the damn hell trusts their employer to make this decision for them? Seriously, most people don’t trust their employer to pick an acceptable cake on their birthday. There are like a bajillion different Federal and State statutes providing substantial remedial protections for employees against the discriminatory and other deleterious practices of employers. For the love of Pete[4], we require employers to pay into their own form of insurance to protect against the high cost of occupational injuries. Why? Because we don’t trust them to not become insolvent in the process of protecting against their liability. Yet, we’re all supposed to be totally cool that our employers — who in [I make no normative judgment about the economic system directly following this bracket] capitalism are programmed to judge decisions based on the ability to generate profit — are the ones making the decision what insurance protections should be purchased which can literally mean the difference between our life and death? Nah. No thanks.

[1] The President’s statement becomes quite believable if you substitute “everyone” for “nobody” and “a complete f’ing cluster f” for “so complicated”

[2] Now, I do realize that the efficacy of having that information readily obtainable should be somewhat in doubt.  See e.g. footnote 1 and like the last 70 days.

[3] And if we are indeed talking about Cleveland Browns’ Quarterbacks, again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again (and that just covers 2013-2016).

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[4] Pick a Pete, any Pete.  This week, I’m going with Mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg @petebuttigieg on twitter.

Atticus T. Lunch, Esq. is an attorney in Any Town, Any State, U.S.A. He did not attend a top ten law school. He’s a litigator who’d like to focus on Employment and Municipal Litigation, but the vicissitudes of business cause him to “focus” on anything that comes in the door. He can be reached at atticustlunch@gmail.com or on Twitter

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