The health care debate is at once fascinating and exhausting. The interminable chin wagging from both camps is luckily interrupted, from time to time, by moments of clarity.

I experienced one such moment the other day as I watched one of the town hall screaming sessions. There is certainly more to the deep seated paranoia on the part of the enraged citizenry than a simple instruction kit from Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck or the like. There is genuine concern that something insidious is going to happen when the Government dares to intervene into our employer provided health care model. This concern was summarized by one elderly citizen at a town hall meeting in South Carolina who stood up and told Rep. Robert Inglis to “keep your government hands off my Medicare.”

Never mind that our employer provided system is a WWII wage freeze “work-around.” It’s what we have and are used to. But to cling to this system is like squeezing sand; the harder you try to hold on to it, the more it just slips away.

I know. I was responsible for health care costs in my corporate career. It was the consistently highest inflation item inside our P&L and each year we had to mitigate the cost increases by charging employees more for less coverage. We were not unique. This “more for less” model is alive and well with employers throughout the U.S. This has created a sort of “race to the bottom” to see who can garner a competitive advantage by having the lowest cost programs. There goes that sand again.

All the while the costs were going up and the benefits were going down, the senior most executives in the insurance industry were enjoying halcyon years. This era was highlighted by United Health’s  CEO William McGuire who amassed more than $1.6 billion in stock option value in just a few short years.

To put this into perspective (as if it is not a ridiculous enough figure already) that few years’ worth of options is more than  Paul McCartney earned in his entire musical career. You know, with the Beatles, Wings and as a solo artist.  McGuire enjoyed  a truly magical mystery tour until he was caught back-dating the options and had to repay $468 million. If this is the power of the profit motive in health care, I’ll have less, please.

So let’s stop all of the shouting and take an objective look at our health care system, free from rhetoric and soundbites. Perhaps if we loosen our grip, we might catch something actually worth holding on to.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 26th, 2009 at 3:34 pm and is filed under Economy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.