Our nation is facing a life or death choice

Soundbyte:

Private Health Care = Death

Public Health Care = Life

Our nation is facing a life or death choice and it rushes in to choose death.

1. Soon to be 50 million uninsured

2. US pays more than anyone and receives less than more than 35 other countries (World Health Organization statistics)

3. US pays 82% more for the same pharmaceuticals as the other developed countries

4. The US is the only developed country to create an unnecessary middleman of health insurance companies who serve no role whatsoever but to stand between the services a doctor and hospital can offer and the patient who needs them.

While their staff get bonuses based on their ability to deny claims, we pay for their wholly unnecessary advertising costs, bloated corporate beurocracy, and lets not forget their profits.

In a civilized country the hospital never has to hear that a prescribed surgery is experimental or too costly & therefore denied.

People don’t have to pay for services or prescriptions, except in some cases a small copay. And they never have to worry that a paid agent of the insurance company is employed to conjure reasons why they should have to pay back any major payouts the insurance company reluctantly does make. The typical reasons are any prior complaint of pain indicates a preexisting condition that exempts the company and requires the patient to repay their medical costs.

And let’s not forget the many millions who have been denied coverage at least once, often across the board with no one who will insure them even if they might be able to afford it.

This is a letter I wrote to a San Jose Mercury News columnist, Sue Hutchison, in response to her 2/5/08 column describing some local folks who had their lives saved by area hospitals and arguing that funding shouldn’t be cut.

Hi Sue,

My sincere thanks for your piece today. There is much more that needs to be said, some obvious logical extensions, but I don't know if you are at liberty to say such things. The obvious answer is some version of single-payer (doesn't Sheila Kuehl have such a proposal?). We need this on a national level.

When will the US finally join every other civilized nation on earth in viewing health care as a right? When will the fiscal conservatives realize that uninsured folks don't get preventive care and end up in the ER and cost everyone much more than if we did provide public health care? Or do they want to see people dying on the streets? Between our hyper-militarized national image and the apparent desire to see the uninsured perishing in front of hospitals reserved for the rich, I can hardly believe how bloodthirsty these warmongering anti-health people are.

I'm sure you've seen Sicko; it is a useful and comparative microcosm. I wish our messengers of progressivity could all look like George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Gary Webb (and not the slovenly Moore) but the undeniable fact is he is delivering a truth that right wingers and the Wolf Blitzers/Sanjay Guptas of the world cannot refute (though it is ludicrous and painfully entertaining to watch them try). We pay more than everyone, and we get less than every civilized country. And we need to hear everyday on every media outlet (currently we hear this absolutley nowhere and never) that in France THE DOCTOR WILL COME TO YOUR HOUSE. Forget about waiting in a waiting room. So the hated French have a system that is incomparably and infinitely better and more humane than ours. No wonder they live longer despite their fatty pastries and incessant wine-drinking.

As a personal note, being a professional with a graduate degree and working two jobs (sometimes, as recently, up to five jobs) I cannot afford health care for myself, my wife, or my 10-month-old daughter. This is a revolting state of affairs that should not be tolerated in a civilized country. This is an outrage. I asked at the shiny new hospital next door to my apartment complex (where at least 1000 other families with young kids also reside) where I would go if there was an emergency. I told them I live right next to the Tully Medical Center. They said that's an urgent care facility which doesn't handle emergencies. So if my baby has an emergency, I can't go to the shiny new hospital full of doctors next door; I have to drive 20-30 minutes to O'Connor.

Our nation is facing a life or death choice and it rushes in to choose death.

Notice we are always warned how taxes will go up if we have a nationalized health system and cut out the unnecessary middleman - health insurance companies - whose only purpose is to stand in the way between doctors and patients. In other countries health care is given if you are sick - here it is given only if you can pay. Doctors in civilized countries NEVER have to clear a procedure with the middleman. They never have to deal with money issues at all vis a vis the patient. They are free to provide health care, with, in effect, infinitely LESS RED TAPE AND BEUROCRACY. So we are always warned how taxes will go up if we have a nationalized health system - yet taxes didn't go up, in fact they fell for the ultra-rich, when we spend what will be in the trillions of our treasure to kill foreigners in Iraq.

In fact, relative to what we pay for private insurance, if we even do a half-assed mimic of the best part of the English/French/ etc. health systems, the tax increase should be much less than we pay private insurers now, so it would feel like an expenditure decrease. The market power of the government as a single buyer would guarantee this. And if the program was scaled to be paid for by a progressive tax that would be even better. We have some, ineffectual, progressive taxes on income; notice there is virtually no attempt at all at progressivity with regard to WEALTH (assets) which is different than income. So there is a source right there. Ask Bill Gates' father if he thinks the Estate Tax is robbing him (hint - he doesn't - he's promotes the idea that the rich actually have some social responsibility). And ask Warren Buffet who pays a higher tax rate, him or his secretary (he's famously said it's the secretary).

In Canada, the CBC held a huge six week poll to determine who is the greatest Canadian. Over a million people voted. Wayne Gretzky was #10 on the list. Tommy Douglas, the politician who brought national health care to Canada, was voted #1. So whoever it is that gets the credit for bringing this to the US (if Canada is any indication at all - and we have more cultural similarities with Canada than any other country), that person will be lionized and elevated to the level of Michael Jordan, Jackie Robinson, our greatest sports heroes; it will be Washington, Lincoln, and whoever that brave soul is who improves US health care.

Every humane citizen should be outraged. I want to hear these right-wing millionaires (and their middle class companions who falsely believe they will one day be millionaires, and therefore vote and advocate against their own economic interest in favor of identity politics) tell me why almost 50 million people shouldn't have health care. Let them tell me why it's a great thing that I can't afford health care for myself or my wife who is ill. We should all demand that the US becomes a civilized country.

David Moglen

Economics Instructor