The battle for Progressive change in our healthcare system is being joined. On one side we have those who fully realize that our system is failed, and that millions of Americans who work have no coverage. The other side offers no real solutions and just echoes false talking points that attempt to support the status-quo on America's healthcare system. You can be sure that those who support the current system have health coverage and need not worry about a medical emergency bankrupting them. The really aggrevating part is that they continue to spread falsehoods about Progressive reform to try and undermine those who seek to change a failed system.
I will use my own Congressman, Ed Whitfield of Kentucky's First Congressional District as a perfect example of this. Before exploring his recent comments on healthcare, I think it is important to note that Health Professionals and the Pharmeceutical Industry have contributed heavily to Congressman Whitfield to maintain the status-quo, to the tune of $228,000 in the cycle from 2007 thru 2008.
With that in mind, lets look at what he has to say about healthcare reform:
During the hearing, which was the second in a series the Energy and Commerce Committee is holding to provide an overview of key health reform issues, Whitfield said that "free market solutions can drive healthcare costs down and provide a higher quality of care. We should be focusing on market-based reforms that modernize our regulatory structure and empower doctors and patients with information and options."
In Canada, which has a government run healthcare system, there are 10,000 people on waiting lists for procedures. In addition, Canadians have to wait an average of 17.3 weeks to see a specialist doctor. Whitfield said that this kind of system may provide universal coverage, but it does not provide universal access to medical care and services.
http://whitfield.house.gov/...
The demonizing of Canada's single payer healthcare system is echoed all through the Republican Party, from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity all the way to Congressmen like Ed Whitfield. However, one should look at some real facts that those who profit from the current system want you to ignore.
In Canada their is not a single person that is uninsured. In America there is at least 45 million who are not. It is cheaper in Canada for everyone to be covered than the American system as America spends $1.6 trillion a year on a failed healthcare system and Canada spends $1.1 trillion to ensure all its citizens. That pencils out to $5,440 per American citizen as compared to $3507 per Canadian citizen. Administrative costs are triple in America as compared to Canada and infant mortality is lower in Canada as compared to America, probably due to the availability of pre-natal care. In America Employers medical benefit costs add up to 8% of wages as compared to 0.6% in Canada.
In fact, a quick look will show you that the approach that men and women who see things like Congressman Whitfield has totally failed, and their system is completely broken:
45 million in the U.S. have no health insurance--557,000 in Kentucky; 3 out of 4 of these have jobs.
Employers are cutting on coverage or increasing deductibles and co-pays.
Insurance rates and co-pays are up as much as 20% a year since 2001.
The U. S. is the only industrialized nation without national health care.
We pay 50% more of our GDP on health care than nations with national health programs.
Drug companies' profits average four times those of the other Fortune 500 companies.
According to the World Health Organization, the U. S. is 37th in the world in quality of health care.
All of us are at risk of losing our health coverage or having it reduced.
Over 18,000 adults (aged 25-64) die each year due to lack of health insurance.
http://www.kyhealthcare.org/...
Now, I guess it is perfectly acceptable for folks like Ed Whitfield that our country ranks 37th in the world in quality of healthcare. Folks like him will never have to worry about themselves or their loved ones being one of the 18,000 adults who die due to lack of health insurance. Unfortunately millions of Americans do not have that luxury. Personally, as a proud American It makes me sad that we rank 37th in the world in any essential category such as this. How Whitfield and his ilk can defend this escapes me. I guess it all boils down to money, not values for some.
Despite the myths perpetrated by folks like Ed Whitfield, the single-payer system would be best for everyone, not just those that profit from America being 37th in the world in healthcare.
For patients:
Patients would have access to all medically necessary care, including doctor visits, hospital care, prescriptions, mental health services, nursing home care, rehab, home care, eye care and dental care. (Sorry, "medically-necessary" doesn't cover cosmetic surgery or botox injections.) Patients would have their complete choice of doctors, cheaper prescription drugs, and no bills for health care.
Patients would have access to all medically necessary care, including doctor visits, hospital care, prescriptions, mental health services, nursing home care, rehab, home care, eye care and dental care. (Sorry, "medically-necessary" doesn't cover cosmetic surgery or botox injections.) Patients would have their complete choice of doctors, cheaper prescription drugs, and no bills for health care.
http://www.grahamazon.com/...
Doctors and Nurses:
Doctors would have less paperwork and fewer health care headaches, but they'd also be given more freedom and choices, too. Because there would be "one form" for doctors to fill out and less time spent figuring out a patient's insurance status (and therefore more time to spend helping patients), doctors would be able to return to the reason they entered medicine--to help care for patients. Most primary care physician doctors' incomes would stay about the same (when Canada passed its health care reform, salaries actually went up). Specialists' incomes would decrease, but doctors' own costs would be decreased, too: they could spend less on office staff and employees that work on insurance claims, as well as the health insurance for those workers. Doctors would most likely see decreases in malpractice insurance premiums as well, since patients are less likely to sue if they feel like they know their doctors well, and if they know they'll have health insurance if some problem arises later.
Nurses' salaries increased greatly in Canada after passage of its health system reform. More nurses would be trained and hired to work in departments where nurses have been cut to save costs (and to work in nursing, where there is already a shortage.) This would decrease stress levels, and give nurses more time to spend caring for each individual patient.
Even businesses would benefit from such an approach:
Businesses would see the single-payer system decrease their health costs and remove the burden of administering health insurance for their employees. They would gain the competitive advantage that Canada and other countries have from decreased health costs per worker, and wouldn't need to worry about health care cost increases every year--the single-payer system helps control costs much better than the current system does.
In fact, the only people that would be hurt by such a system would be the health insurance industry, who have insured that America is 37th in the world in healthcare, and have shut out millions of Americans from being covered:
The health insurance industry would be mostly eliminated--only organizations that actually employed doctors (like Kaiser Permanente in California) would be allowed to continue to operate. One single-payer bill would provide one percent of funding for retraining displaced insurance workers during its first few years of implementation.
But what about the argument used by folks like Whitfield, that single-payer is too costly, and "socialized medicine"? The fact of the matter is that the money to cover all Americans is ALREADY THERE, it just needs to be used more efficiently and with the idea that people matter more than profit:
Luckily there's already plenty of money in the health care system. The US spends double what most other countries spend on health care, and Americans still have shorter lifespans, and 45 million people still go uninsured every year. Many financing schemes exist. Hundreds of billions of dollars could potentially be saved in administrative costs, which would far exceed the amount needed to insure everyone in the United States. Put most simply, the money that businesses currently pay for health care would go to the single-payer; this would make up most of the money needed.
In fact, although those who defend the status-quo rail against government control of the healthcare system, the fact is that government HAS ALREADY proven itself much more efficient in dealing with healthcare than the private insurance industry:
Sure, there are hoops to jump through in Medicare, and issues that need to be addressed, but on a whole, Medicare is an extremely efficient health system. (By efficient, I mean it spends very little money on administration of the program, and most of its money going toward health care.) Medicare spends about 2-3% of every dollar on health care administration, while most HMOs spend around 15%--some even high as 30%. That's 30 cents of every dollar not going toward health care.
Yes, despite the incessant ravings of the status-quo talking heads such as Limbaugh, Hannity, Whitfield and their ilk they are completly wrong about government efficiency as compared to free market solutions to healthcare:
Governments do some things better than others--so do corporations. Medicare is the most efficient health care system in the US, with administration costs about 20% of the average HMO's administration costs. And if you think there's no such thing as corporate bureaucracy, you've probably never had a problem with your HMO. Ask anyone who has. Any system is going to have some red tape. But it's a matter of having one system of red tape, or 50 different ones. And government's not all bad. Government has provided us with public libraries, the GI Bill, Social Security, police and fire protection, the Do-Not-Call list, emergency services, national parks... there's bad, sure, but that doesn't mean you can just ignore the good.
http://www.grahamazon.com/...
Americans everywhere are at a crossroads on this issue. We can continue a failed system that profits folks like the insurance companies who in turn give millions of dollars to people like Ed Whitifield to propogandize those they are supposed to represent and defeat change that benefits all Americans, or we can demand Progressive change and insure that America will lead the world in healthcare for it's citizens instead of being 37th.
So, while the status-quo will use their little code words like "socialism" and "socialized medicine" and rail against government involvement in creating real solutions to serious problems the facts show that their system is a complete failure and that the only reason to maintain the current system is for the profits of the greediest and least patriotic among us. They had their chance to implement their system and it failed miserably.
It is time America protected its people over the profits of those entities that have failed so miserably. Please join me in demanding a single-payer system in America. It is financially, and morally the right thing to do, and despite Conservative talking points is the most effiecient way to clean up the mess that is the American healthcare system.