Thursday, February 25, 2010

Privacy and healthcare

The "right to privacy" - it is the most often cited unenumerated right, used to prevent the use of private information against individuals. And health information is considered among the most private of all personal information. Yet insurance companies are allowed and encouraged to use our health information to determine premiums for our health coverage.

If the government prohibited insurance companies from accessing or using medical information in determining coverage and premiums, would that cause an extreme rise in the premium rates of healthy people?

Rates may rise somewhat in the beginning, but there will always be the "rogue" company out there that will undercut the others in order to gain more customers. Any premium increase would in a short time certainly level off and most likely recede slightly after a period of adjustment.

Furthermore, the elimination of discrimination based on medical history would result in a decreased concentration of "high risk" individuals, increasing the number of insurance companies negotiating rates of procedures, and quite likely decreasing overall rates charged by providers.

Our present medical insurance system applies upward pressure on prices, both of premiums - through discrimination against individuals with negative medical history records - and provider fees - due to the poor negotiating position of few insurers specializing in high-risk insurance plans.

We could go a long way in alleviating upward price pressures by making our private medical records...private.

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Progressivism or the Constitution

Hillary Clinton calls herself a "modern progressive." It's interesting that no one (except for Glenn Beck) has a problem with this statement. Progressives believe that society must "progress" toward an ideal form of government.

Here is the problem with such a philosophy: Progress requires constitutional and government flexibility. If we find that our government is not addressing some issue of national importance, we should have the ability to quickly change the government.

Woodrow Wilson believed that the British constitution was more advanced than the United States constitution because it allowed for "progress" without the slow process of amendment.

The constitution of the founders assumed and required a limited general government. Progressivism is not compatible with our constitution because it assumes government must "progress" to be more proactive, wielding more and more power as time goes by.

As a result, Hillary Clinton is not just a modern Progressive. She is an un-Constitutionalist. How have we regressed to such a state that someone who would subvert our constitutional system is seen as "progressive"?