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Thu Oct 8 22:43:41 2009
Open Letter
An open letter to my congressional representatives.

I can't remember the last time I wrote a letter with a pen...
Image courtesy of Hatework (the band)

I finally took the time to write up a letter to my congressional representatives about the healthcare debate. I had done enough research that I feel like I understood the core issues (see The Healthcare Debate), so I figured it was my duty to tell them what I'd learned.

After all, I wrote an open letter to them a year ago about the bailout, and it didn't work (I asked them not to fund TARP). So why not try another letter?

So this is what I sent to my representative (Jim McDermott), Senators (Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray) and President Obama as well:

Dear Representative McDermott, Senator Cantwell, Senator Murray, and President Obama-

First, thank you for taking the time and energy to tackle healthcare! The current healthcare system (public and private) is going to run out of money soon, and that could have disastrous consequences. I know the issues are difficult and emotions are high, making the job harder still.

I had three requests.

1) Please fix the core issues. Expanding coverage is good, and I'm even willing to pay a bit more myself if that improves overall coverage, but coverage isn't the main problem. Getting sidetracked with coverage won't help the country in the long run.

2) Please publish a short list of the principles you will use to fix the system. The current healthcare bills are unreadable. We (voters and taxpayers) probably won't read them anyway. But we do care how the problems are solved. Will you commit to transparency in healthcare pricing? Will you commit to solvency of Medicare and Medicaid? Will you commit to hard limits on federal healthcare expenditure?

3) Please move away from medical insurance as the main form of healthcare funding. We don't pay for car maintenance with car insurance: instead, we plan ahead and pay for those expenses out of our savings. We don't pay for home maintenance with home insurance: instead, we plan ahead and pay for those expenses out of our savings, or perhaps borrow to cover them. Paying for everything with insurance doesn't work for cars and houses, and it doesn't work for people either. Insurance should be there for catastrophes only. All other expenditures should be covered by our savings and borrowing if necessary.

I know moving away from health insurance scares people. But as our representatives, and the stewards of our economy, hopefully you are aware that all healthcare costs have to be paid for somehow. We pay today out of insurance and special fees paid by employers, which is a convoluted and obscure process. Asking people to pay directly out of their pockets will force hospitals to make bills understandable, costs transparent, and introduce positive market economics that rewards hospitals for improved healthcare at lower prices, which is the reverse of what happens today.

You can still improve coverage by having the government help low-income families with healthcare costs. Doing that would cost no more than an insurance-based program today (since after all, it is medical costs you'd be paying anyway), but it would be through a much more transparent system.

But whatever you do, please fix healthcare (and not just expand coverage of a broken system), and make clear what principles are guiding your decisions.

Sincerely-

(me)

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