Healthcare: Solutions
The Need for Universal Health Insurance
Since its inception, the Liberal Party has recognized the need for health care insurance for all Americans. Before its support for Medicare and Medicaid, before the advent of group medicine which made reaching physicians on the weekend impossible, before the crippling cost of health care and the difficulties millions have in affording healthcare insurance, the Liberal Party spoke ardently for what we now call universal health insurance. That need is greater than ever.
The United States spends $2.2 trillion on health care annually, more than twice as much per person for health care than any other industrial nation; wins more Nobel Prizes for medicine and science than any other nation and yet is ranked in the bottom third of all industrial nations in such essential health care areas as infant mortality, life expectancy and overall performance. The old expression "You get what you pay for" does not pertain to American health care practice or performance. A national study by the Commonwealth Fund, a philanthropic foundation, indicates that we could save from 100,000 to150,000 lives and about $150,000 billion a year if we could provide better, more consistent health care.
There are those who believe that our health care system is broken - that the cost of delivery is out of control and the performance increasingly substandard. The system allows 47 million Americans to be uninsured, while tens of millions more remain at risk of losing what insurance they have. An estimated 18,000 Americans die every year just because they are not insured and could get no care. Because of the dependency on insurance at work, people periodically slip in and out of health coverage depending upon their state of employment. Then there are the claims for assistance denied and the cancellation of health insurance contracts because of the cost of care received. Half of all US personal bankruptcies are caused by medical expenses, even though two-thirds of those going bankrupt had health insurance. Insured Americans actually pay higher premiums to cover the cost of treating those who are uninsured.
In the past fifty years health care costs have grown faster than wages. Small businesses, Americans without insurance through their jobs, entrepreneurs, part-time workers and independent contractors and consultants, must turn to an unpredictable and often unaffordable insurance market. In the past five years, premiums have gone up 90% while benefits have been cut. In 2005, nearly 60% of adults seeking individual coverage had difficulty finding an affordable plan.
Because private insurance companies try to insure the healthy, they vigorously screen out the overweight, older and chronically ill patients. The cost of private health care insurance is driven up by health care administration - which totaled almost $400 billion alone last year. 25% of the entire health care labor force are not doctors, nurses and technicians but those in administration.
Looking at The John Edwards Universal Health Insurance Plan
Paul Krugman, one of the most progressive voices at the New York Times, reports about Presidential candidate John Edwards' plan for universal health care:
"At first glance the Edwards plan looks similar to other proposals out there, including one unveiled by Arnold Schwarzenegger…but a closer look reveals a plan a lot closer to what the country really needs"
Krugman first reviews the similarities: "To help those uninsured because of the way insurance companies 'game the system to cover only healthy people'… the Edwards plan imposes a 'community rating' on insurers basically requiring them to sell insurance to everybody at the same price…
"To help lower income families buy insurance, the Edwards plan, like others, offers financial assistance with funds made available after rolling back the tax cuts on incomes over $200,000 a year…
"To stop those who avoid buying insurance by using emergency rooms for their health care, Edwards would require all Americans to get insurance and all employers to either provide insurance or pay a percentage of their payrolls into a government fund to be used to buy insurance."
Then, Krugman looks at the differences in the Edwards plan: "Edwards goes further…People who don't get insurance from their employers wouldn't have to deal individually with insurance companies - they would purchase insurance through 'Health Markets' which are government-run bodies negotiating with insurance companies on the public's behalf. People would in effect, be buying health insurance from the government, with only the business of paying bills - not the function of granting insurance in the first place - outsourced to private companies."
Krugman suggests that this will work because insurance companies spend billions on marketing and screening out high-risk clients. With insurance companies selling to the government - the Health Markets - and not directly to individuals, most of these expenses would go away, making insurance cconsiderably cheaper.
Krugman says "Better still, 'Health Markets' will offer a choice between private insurers and a public insurance plan modeled after Medicare - thus offering a crucial degree of competition. Medicare has low overhead and a public insurance plan would almost certainly be cheaper than anything the private sector might offer now…They will have to match the public plan's low premiums or lose the competition."
What follows is a look at the Edwards Universal Health Care plan in more detail.
"John Edwards on Universal Health Care"
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