At long last, the age-old problem of health care for the poor and near-poor is being discussed in an open forum. The problem has existed since the ethos of class differentiation was begun with the invention of wampum. In this modern age, it is only through the activities of individual greed that it continues, despite the glaring fact that one solution is the only alternative.
Mitt Romney's Massachusetts experiment has already been exposed as a failure, as will be any other program for "mandatory insurance." Even with the assistance that is provided to elderly holders of policies for Medicare Part D, recipients of the Romney plan must be totally destitute in order to be free of the required "deductible and co-payment" muddle. Even if they have "insurance coverage" they still cannot afford the cash outlay that is required in order to obtain the necessary treatment.
How, then, can we be sure that even those who are marginally above the "poverty level" will receive the health care they need? How do we care for those who are ill before their condition creates a crisis? How to keep the healthy in good condition so that they can continue to lead productive lives?
Half a century ago, a good businessman named Henry Kaiser joined other automobile and equipment manufacturers in ceasing to make their former products in order to produce the needed equipment that the country required to effectively engage in World War II.
Kaiser built huge shipyards on the West Coast and people poured in from all over the beleaguered nation to work in them. However, it was soon apparent that these folks were physically devastated by medical neglect, malnutrition, and other maladies inflicted by the Great Depression. The absenteeism troubled Kaiser until he reached one infallible conclusion: "It is less costly to keep people healthy than to get them well once they become ill."
On that philosophy Kaiser built his own clinics and hospitals where employees of his operations could receive physical check-ups regularly, get necessary medications, dental care, and visual examinations and treatments. A small amount was deducted from employees' paychecks, and Kaiser workers became healthy, happy, and productive. Only later did the Bess Kaiser Memorial Hospital system become the largest Health Maintenance Organization on the West Coast.
With the end of the war and the closure of the shipyards, the program became open to other employers on a group plan, although only those who worked for such employers could benefit from the total coverage, the excellent care, and the reasonable cost. With the advent of other, similar companies, Kaiser became just another HMO in order to deal with the competition.
But the principle Kaiser discovered remains as true now as then. Today, even with the S-CHIP program, small children must either miss school or attend while suffering from ailments such as ear infections or bad coughs while their working fathers, mothers, or both, must wait for a payday so they will have the necessary nine or ten dollars to make the "co-payment" in order to see a doctor.
Employees go to work feeling ill but are forced to "tough it out" because they cannot afford to risk a hospital stay for fear of the "deductible" and its devastating effect on family budgets. What we have is not working, and the plans that are being proposed will not work either. The news site, AlterNet, has done an excellent series on the problem.
There are many arguments from those who oppose the Universal Health Care plans proposed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich and others. One is that it would raise taxes. Horrors! Have you computed the amount that you pay in insurance premiums each year? The insurance companies have been "taxing" you for half a century and you take it in stride. The added taxes to cover your health care would not likely be more than you are paying now to the insurance company, and the coverage would be better.
Another is that it would "destroy an industry." Perhaps an unfeeling industry should be brought to account for the exorbitant profits they have amassed as the result of denying care, requiring co-payments and deductibles to deter people from fully utilizing their benefits, and for refusing coverage to "high-risk individuals." Let them go back to insuring lives and property, cars, houses, and business liabilities.
The third argument against free universal health care is that it would cost too much. This argument is the least effective when viewed in the light of reality. The insurance companies declare an annual profit of some Ten Billion Dollars! How many of the 40% of Americans without adequate health care could be kept healthy by the addition of that amount to be paid to physicians, hospitals, and pharmacists?
It is time that the American people take a clear-eyed look at the reasons why our children are being weakened, our workers hindered, and our elderly are going without medications at the end of the year because of the dreaded "donut hole," while we bear the burden of making the rich even richer. We manage our personal budgets with care to be sure that we spend our money in the most efficient and cost-effective manner. Why should we ask less of those firms that are stealing our health-care dollars while leaving us without that for which we are paying? As they "cream the market," insuring only the healthy while discontinuing coverage for those with serious illnesses, those left uninsured are forced to liquidate their homes and other assets to pay for their own medical care until they are destitute and qualify for Medicaid and welfare.
That is why our nation, which spends more for health care than any other can only rank 45th in the quality of care. Those who can afford it have access to the most modern technology and life-saving procedures, where those who cannot are left with medical care that is reminiscent of the nineteenth century. This is the great shame of our vaunted democracy where we expound that "all men are created equal."
The big lie is exposed when you learn that the rich get the best of everything, especially health care, while the poor are shunted aside to die of neglect. When a plan is suggested that would care for the poor while costing the rich no more, we owe it to ourselves to give it serious consideration.
The author is a very "with-it" old lady who aspires to bring a bit of truth, justice, and commom sense to a nation that has lost touch with its humanity in the search for societal "perfection".
Thank you for clearly and convincingly making the case for a turn towards sanity in this country. In addition to the revenue saved by eliminating the value subtracted bureaucracy of the heartless profit making health insurance industry, additional revenue could be easily and painlessly raised by making the regressive payroll tax a progressive tax that could be applied to all classes of income, including the income of the idle class. No free lunch, but it would come at the expense of those best able to afford it with the added bonus of perhaps slowing the insane perpetual exponential growth machine known as the economy. That's at least two pluses in my opinion.. And what's all the concern over elimination of a poorly performing unnecessary industry? We haven't always viewed corporations with the reverence formerly reserved only for God.
Thank you, Mary for putting the situation in a nutshell. The answer, of course, is Dennis Kucinich. His agenda solves every problem that we have - health care, dumping NAFTA and WTO, the war and impeachment. We could actually have our country back if the people are smart enough to avoid the three "front runners" who are whores to big business and the lobbyists, and vote for Dennis Kucinich.
Please use the brains we were all given and we will be able to sleep at night again. Vote for Dennis Kucinich!!
by
Caronome (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 1 diaries, 196 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 1:21:32 AM
Y'know, if we had a nation-wide primary, we could have had a President Kucinich four years ago and would have been well on our way to healing the country by now. And just think of how many of our fallen soldiers would still be alive!
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Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 2:46:12 AM
I wasn't born till 1962 so I was not aware of Kaisar's history. I was, however, told by my father that until about 1960, Blue Cross and other major health insurances were not nearly as selective as they arer today (in the competitive health care marked of the Reagan and post-Reagan era). That is, a greater number of Americans were covered because that was the practice and right thing to do.
In the absence of minimum coverage for all that has come from misguided policies of governments at the federal level over the past 3 1/2 decades, America must have universal coverage offered and required.
I lived in Germany in the 1980s and I had far better coverage than the average American has. They have both a private and public set of health coverages required of all laborers and empoloyers by law. Germany even requires that if a peson works only 10 hours a week that they still get at least 1/4 coverage by the firm they are employed at.
Americans have been settling for mediocrity for far too long.
I am running for both president of the USA (currently on the Republican ticket) and for Senator of Kansas demanding universal coverage NOW.
even more of your money is eaten up by "administrative costs" which amounts to 25% for insurance corps compared to single digits for Medicare. Add this to the billions that are spent for advertising, and they STILL have billions left for CEO salaries in the multiples of millions anf for the bloated profit margins!
Right after WWII, the Farm Bureau of Kansas started Blue Cross/Blue Shield as a policy holder-owned corporation and it still is. Recently, for-profit insurance companies tried to buy it and were turned down by the share-holders who then got rid of the CEO and his golden parachute. Coverage is still very expensive but more complete than most. Blue Cross of Kansas began as a limited co-op for farmers and is very jealous of their independence, even though other groups are eligible now. However, it is still beyond the reach of the working poor.
Ask your friends to study this situation for it will not be done until the people demand it. And I shall follow the name you gave me to remember in the voting booth.
by
Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 9:26:10 AM
Why do you think the government will be any better at this bureacracy? Makes no sense, and YES, taxes will go up, maybe not for the rich, but for the middle class, who gets shafted out the ass every time something like this comes into existence. The middle class already have health care, yet we're going to make a different type of health care mandatory? The poor already get treated for free in emergency rooms. I know, I've seen this first hand.
by
Justin Green (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 22 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 7:57:09 AM
Medicare does work! My husband was hospitalized many times in 2006 as he was dying from COPD. Each hospitalization amounted to nearly $100,000, but we only had to pay $980, which was still a fortune to us as Social Security dependents. And NOBODY gets free treatment in an ER. They get billed and hounded into bankruptcy, (unless they are illegal aliens). If it were not for Medicare, the man would have lain at home with no medical care and died like a dog several years earlier! No insurance company would have sold him coverage at any price and. once treated in ER, the bill might well have been here when he got out.
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Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 10:48:07 AM
and I'll say it again. You can't afford medical care, you don't know anyone who can afford medical care, so then, who can afford medical care?
In other words, few people can pay for their own medical expenses, so they want someone else to pay for it. So do I. But I did the math and there aren't enough of those people to go around. So that leaves government.
Government is ultimately responsible for the rising cost of medical care due to induced inflation; It is induced by increasing the money supply, lowering interest, and putting trillions on the cuff for our kids to pay.
The kids can't pay it. So then, can they pay for our healthcare when we stop working? Can they pay for our social security? Can they pay for military and government pensions? No. So that leaves government.
Where does government get money? Taxes, but In one sense, they 'don't" get enough money, that is why we have a $9 Trillion national debt and $50 Trillion in unfunded liabilities.
But let's just pass that on to the kids, because right now, I want free health care at their expense, because I want to retire and quit working.
We can get the government to provide the force necessary to take the money from the younger generation and give it to us. After all government has shown excellent fiscal restraint and unparalleled managerial skills in all that they have done thus far.
By the way, that nifty German medical system mentioned above went broke and had to be totally rebuilt. They are currently suffering from the same problems that we are, the kids can't support them.
This problem goes well beyond taxation of the rich and the dismantling of corporate America. The numbers simply don't add up long term.
We need a solution, on that I agree, but goverment isn't it.
by
Mike Folkerth (117 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 548 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 10:04:36 AM
If you don't know what the answer is, how can you know what it isn't? I know that many see the government as the enemy, and something to abolish. I see it as an essential that has gone astray and needs to be corrected. And here again, your outlook depends on which side of the class divide you occupy. Those who have plenty worry about keeping it all and relegate those who do not to the trash-heap of historical rejects. Without government, who ya gonna call? If your house catches on fire will you put it out alone? If you are burglarized, are you going to hunt the miscreant down and punish him yourself? Are you prepared to live in the old Wild West where you can't walk the streets without a pistol on your hip? Shades of Charles Dickens' England! Isn't that what our founders came here to escape? Yes, we must have government, and if we are a united nation, that government must rule all of us. Our responsibility is to maintain control of that government and if it is a bad one, we, the people, must make the necessary corrections to the mistakes that have been made in the past. Governments, like houses, take time to build and it is better and less costly to keep them in good repair than to demolish them and start over.
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Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 12:20:51 PM
Hear, hear, what's all this talk of government in the the third person? We are the government folks, take responsibility, don't let the corporate rascals smear us indirectly by attacking the government. Corporations are doing their best to dominate, obfuscate and destroy our government. Take it back!
"A people may prefer a free government, but if, from indolence, or carelessness, or cowardice, or want of public spirit, they are unequal to the exertions necessary for preserving it; if they will not fight for it when it is directly attacked; if they can be deluded by the artifices used to cheat them out of it; if by momentary discouragement, or temporary panic, or a fit of enthusiasm for an individual, they can be induced to lay their liberties at the feet even of a great man, or trust him with powers which enable him to subvert their institutions; in all these cases they are more or less unfit for liberty: and though it may be for their good to have had it even for a short time, they are unlikely long to enjoy it." -- John Stuart Mill, Representative Government, 1861
by
all owners (1 articles, 56 quicklinks, 4 diaries, 140 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 7:02:44 PM
What in the world makes you think the poor or uninsured get treated for free at the emergency room?
Certainly they get treated, but it isn't for free. Upon discharge, a bill is prepared just like for anyone else....and for the poor and uninsured, that means bankruptcy for ever and ever, given the cost of health care as it is today.
All you have to do to realize that universal health care can work for the people of the United States is to look at all the other countries in the world where it is actually working.
Socialized medicine? That is just a loaded phrase used to scare simpletons and secure exorbitant profits for insurers.
by
B York (0 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 86 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 10:45:53 AM
Those of us who know must not let such untrue statements to go un-challenged. The crisis of medical care is very real and very serious. It is only by speaking up and acquainting fellow Americans with the truth that anything will ever be done about it. So long as the big corps have nice dividends at the end of the year, the neglected dead will remain faceless as well as lifeless.
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Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 10:52:27 AM
I mean it when I say that I would LOVE to have free medical care. I also mean it when I say that a nation of 300 Million people who already have a public and private debt of some $62 Trillion simply can't take on another massive expenditure without cutting spending in another area.
Medicare alone will become insolvent in 2015. What if we added all of those who are presently on insurance to that burden? Social Security will be insolvent around 2041, those are government figures, not mine. I think it will much sooner due to the economy stalling.
We must cut spending before we can add programs.
In my earlier post, when I said you can't pay for health care, I was using "you" to mean everyone. I certainly can't pay for healthcare and know few who could.
The next generation just can't bear the load. Please let me know which 44 countries have higher quality healthcare than the U.S. I had never heard that.
I'm also interested in hearing how we can pay for the suggested program along with the burden that we already have.
by
Mike Folkerth (117 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 548 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 8:23:06 PM
I included only the link to the Alternet collection in the interest of brevity, but there have been many articles regarding this by several writers who are much more knowledgable and competent than I. As a matter of fact, if you click on some of the links on this site, you will find many of them whose credibility is much greater than mine, though this information has been in even local papers, including out here in the Great Nowhere. They come from a recent survey by an international organization with access to information from all over the world. As the only industrialized nation without universal health care, we still spend a great deal more for the care we do get. I do not quarrel with the quality of health care that is available but I do maintain that, for many, it is simply not available and it should be, as a matter of human right. The only way to assure that everyone, regardless of financial status or economic class, to achieve this is the single-payer plan like Medicare less the deductibles and co-payments. I have spent a long career of working with the poor and handicapped and understand their difficulties and now I are one! lol
by
Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Thursday, December 27, 2007 at 9:01:26 PM
I believe the item to which you refer was on the QUALITY of care whereas the one I cited was on the "availability" of health care. There is a glaring difference which can only be accounted for on the basis of financial disparity. It makes my point.
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Mary Pitt (61 articles, 0 quicklinks, 2 diaries, 162 comments)
on Friday, December 28, 2007 at 8:54:38 AM
