Food for Thought

I have been hearing a lot of pieces on NPR related to healthcare reform lately. (Then again, where is healthcare reform NOT a hot topic?) One I found particularly poignant compared our current healthcare structure to a grocery store.

Imagine that our employers collaborated with grocers to provide food for us each week. We could go into the grocery store, pick out whatever we wanted, head to the checkout counter and pay our "co-pay," be it $10, $15, $20 or what have you. We could have lobster tail and caviar every night if we wanted for no more than the cost of our co-pay! With no direct link to the cost of our food, we would have no incentive to balance high- and low-priced items.

Grocers, on the other hand, could hike up prices of their products exponentially because we, the consumers subsidized by our employers, would still happily buy them. Before long, however, we would be entrenched in a system where grocers had pushed prices up so high that those without the benefit of employer-related subsidies would no longer be able to afford to eat.

And then where would we be? Hmm.. precisely where we are right now...