Everybody else knows healthcare is complicated

What’s it gonna be, your phone or your life?

That’s what healthcare came down to this week for Rep. Jason Chaffetz of Utah.

“Americans have choices,” Chaffetz said. “And they’ve got to make a choice. And so, maybe rather than getting that new iPhone that they just love, and they want to go spend hundreds of dollars on that, maybe they should invest in their own healthcare. They’ve got to make those decisions themselves.”

True story: My stomach has been hurting, and my new doctor put me through a few tests and a few weeks of prescriptions. I have insurance ($240 a month), and my costs have been office visit copays (two, at $30 each), medication partially paid by insurance ($45) and medication not covered by insurance ($20). Without insurance, those office visits are around $150 apiece and the medications are $700.

An unlocked iPhone 7 is $970 on Apple’s website. Without insurance, March took my entire year of savings. With insurance, I’ll blow through my budget by April, all without a sudden injury, cancer, heart disease or diabetes.

My friend, who’s slightly to the right of Stalin, has medicine that costs him $1,400 a month. He used to love Chaffetz, and now he’s sickened by the guy.

“Invest in healthcare? If I invest,” he said, “I want a return on investment. What’s the ROI? ‘You spent $25,000 in premiums this year. Bright side? You didn’t get sick.’”

Chaffetz later corrected his statement to reflect that he believed in self-reliance. To our knowledge, Chaffetz is still relying on a taxpayer-funded healthcare plan.

Chaffetz and other House Republicans sent more than 50 symbolic repeals of Obamacare forward when they didn’t control D.C. Now they’re finding out you can campaign in a bubble, but you have to govern in reality.

They think it’s terrible that men have to pay for prenatal care (Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill.), conveniently forgetting a man plays a role in every pregnancy. Perhaps the Library of Congress has a copy of “How Babies Are Made.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan scoffs at Obamacare’s philosophy that “young and healthy people are going to go into the (insurance) market and pay for the older, sicker people.” as the rest of us respond, “That’s exactly how insurance works.”

Some guy who won the White House by calling Obamacare a disaster now says, “Nobody knew that healthcare could be so complicated.” Nobody, except people who have to learn about their co-pays and co-insurance payments, or fight with an insurance company because it covers two daily 500-mg capsules but refuses a daily 1,000-mg capsule.

Obamacare isn’t perfect. Far from it, because Democrats haven’t gotten it either. They built a weak plan by negotiating with themselves to get Republican votes that would never come. I believe in many libertarian ideals, but I think healthcare is one of those general welfare things like roads and fire departments that government should handle to make life better for its citizens. For-profit healthcare system doesn’t work because in both phrasing and practice, the profit comes before the healthcare.

So what’s it gonna be? I’m a little afraid of the answer.

Kevin Wilson is managing editor for the Clovis office of The Eastern New Mexico News. Contact him at: [email protected]