Basic Care
Today, I continued to listen to Eric Alterman’s audiobook entitled: “Why We’re Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America.” I am no where near finished but it is by far the best book I have read this year, I am actually shocked at some of the facts he speaks of in his book and no longer look at the American political biosphere as fair but rather skewed towards the conservatives. This may conflict with some of my earlier statements but I cannot fault Mr. Alterman’s argument hence I have changed my position. This is not the point of my post today as I wish to once more make a push for Universal Healthcare in America given the current campaign:
WASHINGTON, July 8 (Reuters) - A coalition of unions, think tanks and other groups launched an advertising campaign on Tuesday saying they want to ensure that health-care reform tops the U.S. political agenda after the November elections.
I wrote about a good friend of mine in an earlier post whose family opts to pay the fine in Massachusetts because the cost of healthcare is so expensive. The GOP and the Republican party do not offer a solution to people like this but would rather sit back and block resolutions that could effectively help 47 million Americans. They throw around excuses that the Government is inefficient, people waiting for important surgeries and the cost. What really sparked my continued thought and research on the concept of Universal Healthcare for every American was this op-ed post in the Detroit Free Press:
McCain intends to push for cost containment when it comes to the health care issue, a strategy that’s much more plausible than Obama’s hopes for universal health care. While many people think it would be better if all Americans were covered under a national health care program, the reality is that we would be better off setting up appointments and paying more money for the help we need. If we had a national health care plan, there would be longer waits for transplants and other surgeries, and less of an opportunity for people to take care of what they need medically in a timely manner.
The idea of universal health care sounds like a great concept, but Obama fails to realize that life is not a fairy tale.
The author of this post has clearly not done the relevant research into the various Universal Healthcare systems around the world. A question she might ask herself is why is America the one of the few nations in the West without a Universal Healthcare system? Why do 47 million people not have health insurance yet no one wants to do anything about it? The cynical answer is that the healthcare industry of which I was apart of at one point, loves to shower money on the Republican’s so that they keep knocking down any legislation with the hopes of helping the people who cannot afford to pay for health insurance.
The only case I am going to argue today is the moral case because America to me is about equality and things are not equal at the moment, from the American Medical Student Association:
The consequences of America’s decision to treat health care as a privilege extend far past the uninsured. With employers dropping health insurance at a record pace, more and more middle class Americans are at risk of uninsurance. Those who work for companies that continue to offer health insurance find themselves paying a higher share of health care costs than they did previously.1 Finally, employees are finding their wage increases to be smaller and smaller as the cost of providing health insurance skyrockets for employers.
The most direct way in which the insured are affected by the lack of universal health care is illustrated by a 2005 study that surveyed people who filed for personal bankruptcy. In this study, 46.2% of those surveyed cited a medical cause for their bankruptcy. Of note, only 32.6% of those citing a medical cause of bankruptcy were uninsured at the time of filing, meaning that almost 7 out of 10 people in the survey were insured when they filed.7 In other words, high medical bills and lost income due to illness can lead to bankruptcy even for the insured. A society that believes that people should pay a lot of money for the privilege of having health care is a society in which only the extraordinarily rich are truly immune to the threat of medical bankruptcy.
The only point I want to make personally is that every single American deserves access to basic care regardless of wait times for surgeries, costs, and inefficiencies. People should have the option in the current financial climate to be able to rely on the government to prevent themselves from going bankrupt paying for healthcare. This will not happen with the current administration but hopefully in 2009, the politicians in Washington will finally pull through for the American people and enact the comprehensive healthcare reform that has been so needed in the last decade.
July 09 2008 10:09 pm | American Politics
July 11th, 2008 at 12:11 am
This is crazy I just downloaded this book last week. Now i Have a reason to listen to it.
July 11th, 2008 at 12:52 pm
Simply put, we don’t have government-run health care because we don’t want it. We don’t want to stand in lines, we don’t want to create another bloated bureaucracy, and we want to decide which doctor we see and when.
Remember, just because you don’t have insurance doesn’t mean you don’t get health care. I don’t have insurance; I pay for my care fee-for-service. As do millions from other countries who fly to the US or Asia to get care their own systems won’t provide.
As many as 20 million of that number are illegals; they get health care. They just don’t pay for it, as hospitals are not allowed to turn you away when you show up. Another big chunk of that number are young males; they eschew employer-offered insurance.
Unions want national health care because employer-provided insurance goes into the cost of manufactured goods. Putting the cost onto the government helps protect union jobs.
We want to have our babies in our local hospitals, not be flown out of the country (Canada) because there’s no open beds. We want our doctors to be able to order MRIs and have the results an hour later, not months later. Our system is expensive, but so are others’.
We may bitch about the costs, but we know the alternatives, and prefer ours.
*Note: By “we”, I mean the country as an aggregate.
July 11th, 2008 at 5:48 pm
Tate man, I was actually going to mention that you do download the book but good to see you have, let me know what you think of it
Hey Gordon, I would like to see a comprehensive national poll of whether American’s support national healthcare before I agree with your statement. Again in the current medical system, you cannot go to any doctor as your insurance providers only support certain doctors.
You are quite right when you say millions of people fly to the U.S for specialized care, but you have to admit some of those fees are a bit outrageous, I remember straight out of college, a buddy of mine didn’t have health insurance and broke his hand, his bill was $3000, that’s a bit excessive don’t you think?
Everyone does have access to healthcare but basic things should be covered by the federal government which is all I am saying, many other industrialized nations make it work, why can’t the United States? Check out the CT coalition for universal healthcare, there stats are out of date but they still hold true today:
http://cthealth.server101.com/
July 13th, 2008 at 9:06 am
Did you see the Bunk study stating 2/3 of doctors in America want National Health Care. The doctors who did this study also conducted one in 2002 and found that the majority of doctors did not want national health care, the problem with this is that the 2 question surveys drastically differ in there 2nd question. I found this article, 60% of Physicians Surveyed Oppose Switching to a National Health Care Plan, It’s worth a read.
July 13th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Hey Matt, great article but the person writing it, like myself is obviously biased in terms of his support for the right-wing medical agenda. In the article he says that Physicians opinions should not be surveyed because they are biased but they are the people on the frontlines of any healthcare system in any part of the world and they also have the greatest amount of experience.
Even if the majority of these Physicians did oppose a national health care system, at the end of the day it comes down to the felicity of calculus which is how do we provide the greatest happiness to the most amount of people and that is through a national healthcare system that does not have to be compulsory but those people who want greater benefits can pay for it themselves.