Back in 2003 the Physicians for a National Health Care Program (PNHP) the following summary and conclusion in their article in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).
The United States spends more than twice as much on health care as the average of other developed nations, all of which boast universal coverage. Yet more than 41 million Americans have no health insurance. Many more are underinsured. Confronted by the rising costs and capabilities of modern medicine, other nations have chosen national health insurance (NHI). The United States alone treats health care as a commodity distributed according to the ability to pay, rather than as a social service to be distributed according to medical need. In this market-driven system, insurers and providers compete not so much by increasing quality or lowering costs, but by avoiding unprofitable patients and shifting costs back to patients or to other payers. This creates the paradox of a health care system based on avoiding the sick. It generates huge administrative costs that, along with profits, divert resources from clinical care to the demands of business. In addition, burgeoning satellite businesses, such as consulting firms and marketing companies, consume an increasing fraction of the health care dollar. We endorse a fundamental change in US health care—the creation of an NHI program. Such a program, which in essence would be an expanded and improved version of traditional Medicare, would cover every American for all necessary medical care. An NHI program would save at least $200 billion annually (more than enough to cover all of the uninsured) by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry and reducing spending for marketing and other satellite services. Physicians and hospitals would be freed from the concomitant burdens and expenses of paperwork created by having to deal with multiple insurers with different rules, often designed to avoid payment. National health insurance would make it possible to set and enforce overall spending limits for the health care system, slowing cost growth over the long run. An NHI program is the only affordable option for universal, comprehensive coverage.
Health care reform is again near the top of the political agenda. Health care costs have turned sharply upward. The number of Americans without insurance or with inadequate coverage rose even in the boom years of the 1990s. Medicare and Medicaid are threatened by ill-conceived reform schemes, and middle-class voters are very concerned about the abuses of managed care. Other wealthy countries manage to provide universal health care at half the cost we pay. Their problems stem mainly from inadequate funding, not the structure of their systems. In contrast, the problems in the United States are systemic. Incremental changes cannot solve them; further reliance on market-based strategies will exacerbate them. What needs to be changed is the system itself.
Here we now are in 2009 with the same persistent health care problem. No solution reached as yet. The ball for the solution has been tossed into the United States Congress. Which, for me, raises the question of what kind of solution can be expected from the politicians in this Congress?
Senators and Representatives are wandering all over the board, looking, primarily, for political solutions. But the problem is far more important than politics. It is a life and death problem for real people, the American public. The problem transcends the depths of whether it is a Democratic or Republican solution. Nor is it confined by the strangling ideology of whether the solution is capitalistic or socialistic. For an individual about to drown in the sea and a rope lifeline is thrown from a nearby rowboat, he isn’t interested if the rope was manufactured by a capitalist or a socialist. Such labels are irrelevant.
The ordinary American public can’t seem to decide whether they want to rant, scream and threaten at so-called Town Hall Meetings. Mostly they seem to want to cheer for their particular brand of politics and ideology. They seem not to care much for facts, but rather are content so long as their Senator or Representative conforms to their view of the matter.
The Senators and Representatives are content so long as it appears they can win the next election. For them that is the solution to the problem of healthcare.
It all boils down to a determination of whether to retain the capitalistic solution (retain the status quo by retaining the private insurance industry) or the socialistic solution (the expansion of Medicare to all).
Yes, either one costs money. The truism that there is “no free lunch” still applies. The person about to drown in the sea has a choice before seizing the rope, by wanting to know whether it is a capitalistic rope or a socialist rope? Did Aetna make the rope or did the government make it?
However you decide your life likely depends on it.
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Reform is a good idea, however the concentration of benefit is ill advised in my mind. The gov’t is not the fastest at processing anything. People wait unspeakable lengths of time to file for SS benefits, medicare, etc… I really believe that reform is necessary, however I think that socializing health care in this country will be a disaster for all those involved. Right now, the debate is socialistic health care or just assistance and new legislature protecting patients’ rights. I would rather take the latter approach. I can honestly say that, even if the gov’t health take over happens, I will still by my health plan individually. I saw the months of headache my mom and stepdad went through for disability and SS benefits. If 41 million people have been avoiding preventative care due to lack of insurance, then you can expect mass hysteria with processing both at the hospital and gov’t offices…I’d rather pay for my insurance and not have to deal with that. I can’t believe a doctor would want this to happen at all. You thought payment from insurance companies was a pain?? Just wait until you have to depend on the gov’t to process your claims…better stock up some food for the winter.
Greg, I’d recommend you read Physicians for a National Health Care Program.