With the days cooling down and the presidential campaign heating up, accessible and affordable health care is once again a hot button issue. It’s right there with loss of jobs at home, loss of life in Iraq, and loss of honor and respect in the White House, as a major reason for voting.
Imagine facing each day with the nagging fear that a costly illness or injury will strike your family while you have no health insurance. This is the plight of some 41 million Americans and millions more who are a layoff away from also “going bare.”
Each of the nine Democratic presidential hopefuls has put health care on the front burner. Dick Gephardt stepped up first with a bold plan paid for by repealing Bush’s recent tax cuts. The Missourian struck a chord with voters by offering a clear choice--health care for all or tax cuts for a few.
The best, most efficient and sensible plan, “Single Payer,” is hailed only by the lowest tier of hopefuls, Dennis Kucinich, and Carol Moseley Braun. Neither has much of a chance at the nomination and so single payer may have to wait. In today’s highly charged political atmosphere with talk radio and cable TV blaring endlessly, often the best is sacrificed for the possible.
“Single Payer” got a boost recently when some 9,000 physicians announced their support with an ad in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine. Their action is a signal that a growing number of physicians is fed up dealing with the peculiarities and demands of some 1,500 insurance companies. This extra work and time is no guarantee that their best medical judgment won’t be over-ruled by a bean counter hundreds of miles away.
It is true that a good idea is more powerful than all the lobbyists and their campaign money but it takes years for that good idea to take hold. Single Payer will become law someday but only after the people rise up and demand it.
What is “Single Payer?” Medicare is a Single Payer system. A Medicare patient goes to his doctor or hospital and the government (the single payer) pays the bill. Medicare has allowed seniors to live their lives with dignity. Before this great benefit it was not unusual for older people to pray for an early death so as not be a burden on their children.
Our hodge-podge health system could be called a multi-payer system since so many companies pay the bills. All the exclusions, deductibles, multiple forms, limitations, and clerical assistance, drive up the cost. We spend more for health care than any other nation but one dollar in four goes for administration and profit.
Single payer eliminates this waste. The savings in administration is enough to pay for those with no insurance. The U.S. reputedly has the best health care in the world but that door is closed to millions. Covering everybody through Single Payer would cost no more than we are spending now.
Is “Single Payer” a radical idea? All the industrialized nations of the world have it. Why can’t we?
