SB 840, Update from Senotor Kuel's Office
Senior 123
By Jane Bryant Quinn
Newsweek
July 30, 2007 issue - Prepare to be terrorized, shocked, scared out of
your wits. No, not by jihadists or Dementors (you do read "Harry
Potter," right?), but by the evil threat of ... universal health
insurance! The more the presidential candidates talk it up, the wilder
the warnings against it. Cover everyone? Wreck America? Do you know
what care would cost?
But the public knows the American health-care system is breaking up,
no matter how much its backers cheer. For starters, there's the 46
million uninsured (projected to rise to 56 million in five years).
There's the shock of the underinsured when they learn that their
policies exclude a costly procedure they needâ?"forcing them to run up
an unpayable bill, beg for charity care or go without. And think of
the millions who plan their lives around health insuranceâ?"where to
work, whether to start a business, when to retire, even whom to marry
(there are "benefits" marriages, just as there are "green card"
marriages). It shocks the conscience that those who profit from this
mess tell us to suck it up.
I do agree that we can't afford to cover everyone under the crazy
health-care system we have now. We can't even afford all the people
we're covering already, which is why we keep booting them out. But we
have an excellent template for universal care right under our noses:
good old American Medicare. When you think of reform, think "Medicare
for all."
Medicare is what's known as a single-payer system. In the U.S.
version, the government pays for health care delivered in the private
sector. There's one set of comprehensive benefits, with premiums, co-
pays and streamlined paperwork. You can buy private coverage for the
extra costs.
Health insurers hate this model, which would end their gravy train. So
they're trying to tar single-payer as a kind of medical Voldemort,
ready to destroy. Here are some of their canards, and my replies:
Universal coverage costs too much. Noâ?"what costs too much is the
system we have now. In 2005, the United States spent 15.3 percent of
gross domestic product on health care for only some of us. France
spent 10.7 percent and covered everyone. The French comparison is good
because its system works very much like Medicare-for-all. The other
European countries, all with universal coverage, spent less than
France.
Why are U.S. costs off the charts? Partly because we don't bargain
with providers for a universal price. Partly because of the money that
health insurers spend on marketing and screening people in or out.
Medicare's overhead is just 1.5 percent, compared with 13 to 16
percent in the private sector. John Sheils of the Lewin Group, a
health-care consultant, says that the health insurers' overhead came
to $120 billion last year, of which $40 billion was profit. By
comparison, it would cost $54 billion to cover all the uninsured.
Eeeek, your taxes would go up! Maybe not, if Sheils is right. Both the
Congressional Budget Office and the General Accounting Office have
testified that the United States could insure everyone for the money
we're spending now. But even if taxes did rise, you might still come
out ahead. That's because your Medicare plan would probably cost less
than the medical bills and premiums you're paying now.
We get world-class care; don't tamper with it. On average, we don't.
International surveys put France in first place. On almost all
measures of health care and mortality, we lag behind Canada and
Europe. Many individuals do indeed get superior care, but so do people
in single-payer countries, and at lower cost.
They have long waiting times. No advanced country has waiting periods
for emergency surgery or procedures that are urgently needed. The
United States has shorter waits than Canada and England for elective
surgery. Still, queues are developing here, at the doctor's door. In a
study of five developed countries, the Commonwealth Fund looked at how
many sick adults had to wait six days or more for an appointment. By
this measure, only Canada's record was worse than ours. But waits
depend on how well a system is funded, not with the fact that it's
single-payer. Many countries that cover everyone, including France,
Belgium, Germany and Japan, report no issue with waits at all.
There's no problem; people get care even if they're uninsured. They
don't. They get emergency treatment but little else. As a group, the
uninsured are sicker, suffer more from chronic disease and rarely get
rehabilitation after an injury or surgery. They also die
soonerâ?"knowing that, with insurance, they might have lived.
Right now, Congress is trying to bring 3.3 million uninsured children
into the State Children's Health Insurance Program. President George
W. Bush says he'll veto the expansion as "the wrong path for our
nation." He objects to "government-run health care" (like Medicare?)
and says that SCHIP "deprives Americans of ... choice" (like the
choice to go uninsured?). Buzzwords like "government run" are supposed
to summon up monsters like "socialized medicine" that apparently still
lurk under our beds. If these terror tactics work, prepare for another
46 million uninsured.