We try to keep things light here. While everyone else can debate all day long about the merits of government-run health care, we won’t take sides. We’ll let everything sort itself out in the end.

However, there is one aspect of the health care dialogue that just seems to go unmissed, and it’s something worth thinking about. It’s the question of what’s really being proposed, and where the real problems lay.

The Healthcare Industry

The American healthcare industry – and by that we mean the doctors, hospitals, infrastructure and education system – are all in pretty good shape. We have some of the best medicine in the world, and it’s not uncommon for folks to come to the U.S. specifically for treatment.

It’s important to recognize this off the bad. Any “reform” that wants to change the industry itself may or may not be a good thing.

Medical Insurance

Here is where things get a little muddier, and where most folks see a need for improvement. The fact is that not everyone has medical insurance. Medical insurance can be expensive and not all employers offer access to a group plan to make things more affordable.

There’s another side to medical insurance, however, that is often missed, and that’s malpractice insurance. The rising costs of malpractice insurance cause the price of medical services to rise. There may not be an easy fix to this, as tort reform has its problems, too, but it needs to be part of the discussion.

Access to Healthcare

The biggest problem that’s usually identified by people is access to healthcare. They complain that a PPO won’t cover a specific ailment, or that the poor don’t have access to preventative health services. These things aren’t always true, however.

The fact is that medical services are available to the poor, often on a sliding scale. Add to the mix Medicaid, and you’re really looking at a very small number of people that may not have medical services, and most of those actually have access but may not know how to get it.

In addition, just because your insurance doesn’t pay for a procedure or test doesn’t mean you’re forbidden from having it. It just means you have to pay for it. It’s time to stop thinking of medical insurance as something that’s supposed to pay all of your bills and recognize that, sometimes, you need to be able to spend your money on what’s important.

Photo via stuff_and_nonsense