Government Healthcare

Before I write this post, you need to know that I am not telling you whether I am a Republican or a Democrat.  I am not anti-government.  Government plays a major role in our lives.  Government must set and enforce the laws of the land, protect our country, and God clearly ordains government in His word (Romans 13).  I am however unabashedly pro free enterprise.  It is what has made our country what it is.  Look at countries with overbearing government run systems (can you say Chavez, Sub-Saharan Africa).  But more importantly, I am pro common sense.

So what don't I like about our new health care act?  Virtually everything.  I ran a company in the health care industry for 3 years and have spent 6 years in the health care.  I had to write billing systems to process claims.  Our software processed millions of exams per year. 

1.  Mandating coverage increases demand without addressing supply.  Remember economics class and supply-demand equilibrium?  It will lead to spiraling costs and rationing of care.
2.  Expanding government programs such as Medicare and Medicaid are huge money losers to health care providers that are offset by claims from private insurance.  It will tilt the balance of care negatively.
3.  While I understand the sensitivity of pre-existing conditions and lifetime caps, they are necessary for insurance companies to control their costs.  Have these guys ever read a financial statement?  There are other ways to address these issues without abolishing them in the marketplace.  It is simply dumb to make it mandatory for insurance companies to cover all costs across all patients as if that won't make its way into the marketplace. 
4.  An oh those evil pharma companies.  They make so much money.  Did these guys ever understand that 1 in 1000 of these products actually get to the market and it takes years and years to get there?
5.  Finally, whenever government attempts to redistribute anything, it inevitably fails miserably.  Taxing some to equalize benefits to others will fail.  As an employer, I can promise you that I would likely reduce benefits because it costs me less to pay the "penalty tax" than to provide the benefit.
6.  By #5 happening, we are shifting health care from private to public.  Now I challenge you, can you think of anything run better in the public sector than the private sector.

Our government did absolutely nothing to address the major low-hanging fruit that would absolutely guarantee costs would come down and quality go up?

1.  Eliminate interstate barriers to competition.
2.  Implement tort reform which costs billions and billions of dollars in defensive medicine and raise malpractice premiums through the roof.  Could it be all the lawyers in government?
3. Cut back all of the red tape that actually makes it nearly impossible to process a claim reimbursement.  Actually have a system of reporting that makes sense. 
4.  Implement electronic medical records - we are woefully inadequate and still a paper-based health care system.