Healthcare Reform: Coverage Expansion and Cost Containment

The magic keys to healthcare insurance reform are cost containment and coverage expansion. To a lesser extent, federal debt reduction might also be included in this equation. The latest bill to come out of the House of Representatives is getting pretty close. In my mind, expansion of coverage is both a moral issue and a financial one. I believe basic healthcare is a right that should be extended to everyone who lives in America, not because I am a liberal do-gooder but because I am a small businessman who knows that broad coverage is also the only way to bring about cost containment. It's the only way that evens the playing field between consumers and insurers. I buy my insurance on the open market and my rates have increased an average of 15% to 20% per year for the past five years. This can't go on. 

Additionally, we all pay for taking care of the uninsured. I would rather pay through a comprehensive system the brings people into the pool of insured rather than keeping them on the outside where they enter the healthcare system in inefficient and costly ways. The moral issue is how we reach an understanding, as part of the American social contract, that adequate–not blue chip– healthcare is part of life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. It also just makes sense.