It is a national disgrace that 43 million Americans do not have health insurance. Sadly, 11 million are children.
Since President Clinton’s universal for-profit health insurance proposal was defeated in 1994, in large part because of the trillion-dollar health insurance industry having spent $100 million on the infamous misleading ‘Harry and Louise’ TV ads, the number of uninsured has increased by 5 million. Insurance rates have increased at several times the rate of inflation; HMO clerks are telling doctors how to practice medicine; and choice of health care providers is being limited even more. Millions of the uninsured, including children, are bypassing getting preventative health care at the emergency sections of public hospitals, because of inconvenience, loss of pay, etc. This results in more expensive health care later on in life. Millions are doing without food to purchase their pain-killing and sometimes life-saving prescription drugs; at least 31 million are dangerously underinsured. Many small businesses cannot hire qualified employees because they cannot get the same favorable health insurance rates that corporations can.
Every other advanced country adopted a universal government-assured health insurance system, commonly called “single payer,” recognizing that health care should be a right for all citizens and not merely a privilege for some. Nobody should be entitled to make any money off citizens’ health miseries, except those who directly provide health care services, such as doctors and hospitals.
Enough money would be saved under a single-payer system to provide health insurance for the 43 million uninsured. In fact, Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., has stated that under his single payer plan the nation would save $100 billion per year in health care costs. The reason is that while the overhead for a single payer system like Medicare is only 2 to 4 percent, the profit and overhead for for-profit health insurance is at least 20 percent.
The trend in America has been to get rid of middlemen, except in the case of health insurance companies. Why should they be sacred cows?
So why doesn’t America have a universal health insurance system? Well, as sad as it is, America’s politicians have accepted so much money from the health and prescription drug industries that they are literally incapable of acting in the best health and financial interests of the American people. In short, they have been bought off.
Here is another little-known fact that is bothersome: All representatives have 72 percent taxpayer-subsidized health insurance that includes a generous prescription drug benefit. And these folks are supposed to be employees, representatives and agents of the people?
The 108th Congress can fix our health insurance non-system that is becoming more complex, more costly and more unfair by simply placing everybody under Medicare, a time-tested program that everybody understands and likes. If we can afford to help rebuild Afghanistan, we should be able to “rebuild” the health of America’s uninsured.
Students, if you believe every American should, as a fundamental right, be entitled to have permanent, quality and affordable health insurance, you should let your feelings be known now to President George W. Bush, your senators and your representatives.
Milton A. Braun is a retired CPA
and a Southern Methodist University graduate.