Health care...
May. 9th, 2007 03:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nico1908... or rather, the lack thereof, is the subject of a letter to the editor of our local newspaper, published today.
Health Care can be Simple
by William Collins
Great new health plan,
Here unfurled;
To catch us up,
With all the world.
Sure, the rest of the word despises the United States over Iraq. How could it not? But we're also held in low esteem for our health care. The happy difference is that while the war has a malevolent impact on nearly every nation, our health care system hurts only us.
And hurt us it does. Even schoolchildren now realize that 45 million Americans have no coverage at all [Nico1908: I'm one of those 15% of the total population (300 million).]; that coverage for poor people is crummy [Nico 1908: at least the poor have Medicaid!]; that major employers are unloading costs onto their employees; that doctors who treat the poor are poorly treated themselves; that drug companies and HMOs are serious profiteers; that many young healthy folk skip coverage altogether in order to save money; and that HMOs don't want you if you're sick.
Well, okay, maybe schoolchildren don't fathom all that just yet, but they will soon enough. And their elders fathom it now. That's why health care runs just behind Iraq as an issue for 2008. In terms of blather, it is surely No. 1 already because most canidates are still a bit edgy about discussing the war. It's a lot safer just to conjure up some complex health plan that sounds good and that no one will really understand. It's also important to be quite assertive in promoting it. Makes you sound like a real leader.
Unfortunately existing health coverage remains in cynical corporate hands, or at least it will through 2008. This has forced some socially responsible [Nico1908: in words of our 70-year old volunteer Bill, "socialist" - which is the same as communist and, as everybody should know, very, very bad!] states to take a crack at implementing universal insurance themselves. Massachusetts, Maine, and California, serving as laboratories of democracy, are all giving it a go. Too bad each one has a different plan [Nico1908: And too bad Florida has no plan at all!].
Other less-enterprising states are also debating a universal plan this year, but the HMOs and drug companies are likely to make short work of that in legislature. Still it's nice, finally, to have it on the table. Fundamental progress comes in baby steps.
And we surely need a few of those steps right now. Health costs everywhere in this country are astronomical; programs for poor kids are often broken down; Medicaid is haphazard in many places; and finding reasonable coverage has become a nightmare even for the middle class.
Naturally, all this trauma mystifies Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and other denizens of the Western World. "We always thought Americans were smart. How can they be so stupid about health care?" Hey, if you can be stupid about war, health care is a piece of cake!
All those other countries simply let the government be the HMO [Nico1908: this shows that the author has never heard of the German "Krankenkassensystem", but I forgive him.], much like Medicare. This saves them 25 percent of total health costs that America now squanders on our cockamamie system of duplicate insurance cmopanies. Other lands also put the screws to pharmaceutical companies [Nico1908: Whereas in the States, the pharma giants are lobbying hard to get laws passed that make it impossible and/or illegal for citizens to order medications from Canada, where they often are 50-70% cheaper.]. And having vanquished the HMOs, they've freed up countless doctors and nurses from paperwork jobs and reassigned them to patients. Worse hours, maybe, but better care [Nico1908: I very seriously doubt that anybody in Europe works worse hours than Americans!]. Having thus solved their health problems, EU leaders now have more time to argue over banana imports or other crises.
Those nations also have higher taxes than the United States, and so pay for most of health care out of the public treasure [Nico1908: I'll have to write a letter to the editor to end Mr. Collins' regrettable state of misinformation.]. We have a different tradition. Here workers now pay into Medicare, and would surely pay into a similar federal pot with universal coverage. Employers (often) also pay for some coverage for their workers. That would continue, but instead of paying into insurance cmopanies, they'd pay into the federal pot as well, like Social Security. Every employer would similarly have to contribute, not just the ethical ones. Government [Nico1908: In other words, the taxpayer!] would pay the rest.
Simple. Effective. Cheap. The politicians all know that, but they're afraid to go for it. The leeches that prosper from the present health insurance system would go ballistic.
So it seems the Euros are right - we are stupid.
Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and former mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut)
by William Collins
Great new health plan,
Here unfurled;
To catch us up,
With all the world.
Sure, the rest of the word despises the United States over Iraq. How could it not? But we're also held in low esteem for our health care. The happy difference is that while the war has a malevolent impact on nearly every nation, our health care system hurts only us.
And hurt us it does. Even schoolchildren now realize that 45 million Americans have no coverage at all [Nico1908: I'm one of those 15% of the total population (300 million).]; that coverage for poor people is crummy [Nico 1908: at least the poor have Medicaid!]; that major employers are unloading costs onto their employees; that doctors who treat the poor are poorly treated themselves; that drug companies and HMOs are serious profiteers; that many young healthy folk skip coverage altogether in order to save money; and that HMOs don't want you if you're sick.
Well, okay, maybe schoolchildren don't fathom all that just yet, but they will soon enough. And their elders fathom it now. That's why health care runs just behind Iraq as an issue for 2008. In terms of blather, it is surely No. 1 already because most canidates are still a bit edgy about discussing the war. It's a lot safer just to conjure up some complex health plan that sounds good and that no one will really understand. It's also important to be quite assertive in promoting it. Makes you sound like a real leader.
Unfortunately existing health coverage remains in cynical corporate hands, or at least it will through 2008. This has forced some socially responsible [Nico1908: in words of our 70-year old volunteer Bill, "socialist" - which is the same as communist and, as everybody should know, very, very bad!] states to take a crack at implementing universal insurance themselves. Massachusetts, Maine, and California, serving as laboratories of democracy, are all giving it a go. Too bad each one has a different plan [Nico1908: And too bad Florida has no plan at all!].
Other less-enterprising states are also debating a universal plan this year, but the HMOs and drug companies are likely to make short work of that in legislature. Still it's nice, finally, to have it on the table. Fundamental progress comes in baby steps.
And we surely need a few of those steps right now. Health costs everywhere in this country are astronomical; programs for poor kids are often broken down; Medicaid is haphazard in many places; and finding reasonable coverage has become a nightmare even for the middle class.
Naturally, all this trauma mystifies Europeans, Canadians, Japanese, and other denizens of the Western World. "We always thought Americans were smart. How can they be so stupid about health care?" Hey, if you can be stupid about war, health care is a piece of cake!
All those other countries simply let the government be the HMO [Nico1908: this shows that the author has never heard of the German "Krankenkassensystem", but I forgive him.], much like Medicare. This saves them 25 percent of total health costs that America now squanders on our cockamamie system of duplicate insurance cmopanies. Other lands also put the screws to pharmaceutical companies [Nico1908: Whereas in the States, the pharma giants are lobbying hard to get laws passed that make it impossible and/or illegal for citizens to order medications from Canada, where they often are 50-70% cheaper.]. And having vanquished the HMOs, they've freed up countless doctors and nurses from paperwork jobs and reassigned them to patients. Worse hours, maybe, but better care [Nico1908: I very seriously doubt that anybody in Europe works worse hours than Americans!]. Having thus solved their health problems, EU leaders now have more time to argue over banana imports or other crises.
Those nations also have higher taxes than the United States, and so pay for most of health care out of the public treasure [Nico1908: I'll have to write a letter to the editor to end Mr. Collins' regrettable state of misinformation.]. We have a different tradition. Here workers now pay into Medicare, and would surely pay into a similar federal pot with universal coverage. Employers (often) also pay for some coverage for their workers. That would continue, but instead of paying into insurance cmopanies, they'd pay into the federal pot as well, like Social Security. Every employer would similarly have to contribute, not just the ethical ones. Government [Nico1908: In other words, the taxpayer!] would pay the rest.
Simple. Effective. Cheap. The politicians all know that, but they're afraid to go for it. The leeches that prosper from the present health insurance system would go ballistic.
So it seems the Euros are right - we are stupid.
Columnist William A. Collins is a former state representative and former mayor of Norwalk, Connecticut)
