A Question of Healthcare – Part 1

With the long, long run-up to the next presidential election in full swing, healthcare is already a big issue – right up there with Iraq. It appears from recent reports that whatever the U.S. does or does not do in Iraq, the situation will only get worse over the next few years. Healthcare, however, is showing signs of a different, more positive outcome. As Washington Post columnist David Broder noted on Sunday, healthcare has momentum now.

I will go out on a limb today and predict that any presidential candidate of any party who does not support a single-payer healthcare system (also known as universal healthcare coverage) cannot and will not get the nomination of his or her party for 2008. America is fed up with the broken health system and ready to join every other industrialized nation by switching to a single-payer system.

It has been well-reported that more than 47 million people – one-sixth of U.S. citizens – have no health coverage at all. Here are a few facts about United States healthcare you may not know:

• The World Health Organization (WHO) ranks the United States number 37 in overall effective healthcare in the world – one step ahead of Slovenia and two ahead of Cuba. For comparison sake, France is ranked number 1, Italy number 2 and the United Arab Emirates number 27.
• The United States is ranked 49 in the world in life expectancy.
• The United States is ranked number 42 in the world in infant mortality.
• The U.S. government pays more for healthcare per person than any other government in the world – roughly twice what France spends.

Also, the United States has fewer physicians and nurses per capita than most developed countries. Here is how Stephen Fleischman, writing at Alternet, describes the state of U.S. healthcare:

“In the current US system, there are literally tens of thousands of different, and overlapping, health care organizations generating a blizzard of paperwork in an administrative wilderness creating enormous waste - thousands, if not millions of people pushing paper around. They are driving doctors, trying to do a job, up the wall with the different forms needed to be completed in order to get paid, to say nothing of patients fighting their way through a jungle of obstacles trying to get the health care they need.”

Senator Ted Kennedy is on record supporting national healthcare in the form of expanding Medicare for all. So is his fellow Massachusetts senator, Barney Frank. In January, Representative John Conyers of Michigan reintroduced HR 676, titled The U.S. National Health Insurance Act which would cover every person in the country and save, by some estimates, $150 billion in the first year on paperwork alone.

We as citizens need to impress our senators and representatives in Washington that universal healthcare is a number one priority because President Bush will not go near it in his final two years. In fact, in his budget being delivered to Congress today, he is asking for $70 billion in Medicare/Medicaid cuts over five years.

Tomorrow in Part 2: some political realities and a poll on universal healthcare

Comments

[AlwaysQuestion]

Good morning, Ronni.
I hope you won't mind if I pilfer some of your facts from you every now and then, but there does seem to be increasing momentum on this issue.

[Leslie Turek]

One problem with getting public support for this issue is that the haves (people who have been steadily employeed and have never gone without healthcare coverage, or those that are young and don't think they need it) don't have any clue how bad it is for people who are self-employed or unemployed and have to try to obtain health care on their own (or not, as the case may be).

For the have nots, the situation is abysmal, with soaring costs, if you can get a plan at all, and a maze of paperwork and exclusions designed to keep you from getting coverage in the first place, especially if you have a health situation and really need coverage.

It's totally barbaric that so much profit is being extracted from what is, at its base, a llfe-and-death situation for the consumer.

The question is how to we get from where we are to where we want to be. How can we possibly overcome all these entrenched financial interets that would be put out of work if we had a sensible system in place? Our country is run by big business now, and it's not clear to me if the people have the power to make the changes that are obviously in our best interest.

We need a new Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of the corporation.

[Dee]

Again Senator Kennedy is correct....expand Medicare to all. Of interest: I have AARP insurance(pricey, but worth it)to supplement Medicare.......All I receive is an advisory re who paid what. On perhaps 2 occasions I've paid out a few bucks. My wish is that all could have the same. It can be done, but it will not be easy. Dee

[Cowtown Pattie]

Our household of two adults and two students (albeit adults as well) has health insurance for only one - me - courtesy of employer-provided insurance.

Yesterday when Kman and I were out climbing rocks and maneuvering steep slippery muddy trails, he assumed the position of trailblazer and the breaker of my fall should I lose my footing.

Suddenly it dawned on us - if anyone could afford a broken leg - it would be me as the insured.

We laughed, but it was a bitter and terse guffaw.

I suppose we will continue to use the tried but seldom true method of keeping our fingers crossed until Medicare kicks in.

At least we can afford that.

[marja-leena]

Ronni, I follow your conversations on US healthcare with interest and trepidation. Trepidation because there are many politicians in Canada (under big business interests I'm sure) who want to change our health system to the US style. Our system may not be perfect and it does have problems, but good greif, why go backwards!?

[donna]

I think the way to put this is "Under our current system, everyone is one disastrous illness or injury away from becoming uninsured and un-insurable."

Until you have been there, or seen the $350,000 medical bills paid by Medicare for your parent's hospitalization (and that was just Medicare's share, thank goodness my mom still had additional insurance through my dad's old policy at Motorola), you just don't get it.

I have a disabled sister and nephew. Thank goodness my mom's estate wasn't completely wiped out and could go into their trusts. We still had the mess left to get them fiduciaries and guardianships set up, but that was doable.

Oh, and if you haven't set up a trust and a living will, please do so - your kids will thank you later, instead of bitching at JP Morgan for being heartless bastards for three years instead of finalizing your mom's estate...

[Darlene]

My soapbox issue again. I do pray that David Broder is right and that there is momentum for a single payer system. Everyone who is affected should make their voices heard, because you can bet the insurance and drug companies will fight with all their power to stop it. If the Bush restrictions on payments to health care providers in his latest budget goes through how many doctors will continue to take Medicare and Medicaid patients?

[leah]

Thank you so much for calling attention to John Conyers' bill. I just quickly read through it, then compared it with John Edwards' health care proposal, which is on Edwards' web site. I find the Conyers bill far superior. I'll do everything I can to call attention to HR 676. (I can just see it: the Republicans are going to bring up their old scare tactic about "socialized medicine." Think of something clever to refute that.)