Why We Need National Health Care

Few things are more essential to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness than access to health care.  We as a nation should be mortified (pun intended) that anyone in our country dies from treatable illnesses, yet it happens every day.  We should feel appalled that we are one of the few industrialized nations in the world that does not have national health care available to all.

I've worked in health care policy in many of my jobs.  When we evaluate any system of health care, we look at three things: access to health care, cost of health care, and quality of health care. 

Our country has over 40 million people who do not have health insurance and cannot afford routine health care.  Yet we spend more per person than any other country in the world for health care, including in the count those 40 million who don't have health coverage.  We spend twice as much for health care per person than the next highest nation - France - which provides excellent health care to all its citizens. 

Some argue that we have better quality health care here than in other countries.  That may be true for some of our citizens.  I'm sure Dick Cheney gets excellent health care.  But what we have here is a multi-tiered system, where famous, powerful people get extremely good health care, people with health insurance get pretty good care, and the rest get minimal health care at best, and often none at all.  Yet we are all paying for the excellent care that some get, whether we have access to it or not.

I have thought for a long time that it doesn't make sense to tie health care coverage to employment.  It creates the subliminal impression that health care is something that certain people "earn" and therefore deserve, while others whose jobs don't include health benefits or people who can't find jobs at all somehow don't "deserve" health coverage.  As if cancer, heart disease or strokes check whether you have insurance before they strike...

Comments

[Andrew Smith]

Aubrey, it absolutely makes zero sense to have health insurance tied to employment. This, of course, is a direct result of the US government mandating it with the HMO Act of 1973 and since then the feds have encouraged the illogical coupling of employment and health insurance. Along the way, ridiculous regulations and lawsuit-happy lawyers were permitted to further create the complex mess of administration and bureaucracy that puts insurance companies above people. Add to that laws which require medical providers to treat everyone, regardless of their ability to pay and you get the mess we have today.

I find it extremely ironic that in a time when at its lowest point only 9% of the country thinks its elected leaders are doing a good job, so many people would be so convinced that a national healthcare system would improve the situation. Whether it's a single-payer system or a national health insurance program, or some hybrid of the two, how can anyone seriously believe that more government is going to fix this? Any such system would require adding yet another layer of bureaucracy and management to an already bloated and nearly incomprehensible maze of health regulations. Such systems might be the norm in other countries but that alone is not a reason to trash fundamental principles of the Constitution, that it is an individual's responsibility to care for their own health without interference from the government.

On the other hand, it makes more sense to me to apply the same principles which led to US success in every other industry to the healthcare business. Choice and competition with minimal federal regulation leads to growth, low prices, and high quality products. Mandates, bureaucracy, and heavy regulation stifles creativity, innovation, progress, and results in high costs with low quality of care. Sound familiar? It would seem logical that a better solution is to get government out of healthcare as much as possible and allow doctors and patients to have a relationship free of intrusion by politicians, who don't know the first thing about healthcare issues.

Living in fear that people will be dying in the streets with a free market in healthcare is the perfect way to lose our rights to our own medical treatment and for further socialization of medical expenses. Taking care of our neighbors is a laudable goal but forcing us to do it is quite another matter. I am appalled at the cost of healthcare in this country, but certainly not that we don't have a national healthcare system to make costs even higher, and our ability to choose restricted. The continued nationalization of this country will eventually spell doom for the American way of life if left unchecked. If we want a country governed not by the principles of the Constitution and instead resembling all those countries whose citizens come here for medical treatment, because it is unavailable to them in their homes, we are well on our way already.

[Jon M]

What would be wrong for our citizens if we had health care like France or Germany, or most other Western countries? The free unchecked capitalist system is not something from the gods, nor enshrined in our constitution. For one thing, it would be cheaper than now because private insurers would not be in a position to dictate extortion level rates, and the same would apply to the megapharmaceutical businesses. We in the US are their last cash cows. What is worse, is that so many people have been brainwashed by the Rush Limbaugh crowd into lockstep kneejerk response without any logical review of anything. There is a reason why eve US megabusinesses like GM support a universal system: all their fereign subsidiaries are doing better than in the US with its archaic leftover from a hundred years ago. Dogma is not a substitute for what works.

[Jon M]

Note that private insurers, if they are for profit businesses, have to pay taxes on their profits which have to be collected from the insured. In that sense alone, it would be cheaper for all to be insured by a non-profit system.

[Kerri Tang]

We don't have what "all" those other European countries have, because that is NOT a free market, and the GOVERNMENT controls the health system. That means, you go to the dr when your government says you can, and who you see, is there choice, etc.

RX's in our country are not as cheap, as, say Canada, and some other major industrialized nations, due to one main fact~~we do all the drug research! It has to be paid for.
So, all the other major countries in the world, benefit from US paying for that research and creation of new drugs.
How about having the U.N. draw up a resolution, requiring all other major countries to pay into the research done here, and share the expense?
And, then there's medicaid. Let's gut and clean that system, so it isn't the abused, paper choked system it is, and enhance it, so it will cover everyone who is uninsured.
And, let me remind everyone who posts here today~~when it comes to the difficultys that small businesses have had the past 15 yrs, in making insurance affordable for their employees, Pres. Bush tried, twice, to get legislation passed, that would allow several small companies to band together, and get the same rates as larger corporations have. THE DEMOCRATS VOTED NO, AND NO. THEY HAD ALL KINDS OF REASONS THAT WE SHOULDN'T DO THAT.
So, several strides were attempted by the GOP and Pres. Bush during his term, but the last time, the democrat senate leader would not even allow it to come to the floor for a vote.
Much of what Pres. Bush wanted done did not see the floor for a vote. All the wrangling and the refusal to allow votes on pieces of legislation~~so much for that civility. bipartisonship, and working across the aisle by the dems.
This president's missions won't be any different. Not as long as speaker of the house, is Pelosi.
She's already appealing the tax cuts put in place by Bush. (These are the same ones Kennedy and Reagan put in place, and THEY DID WORK). And, she has no intention of being bipartison or working across the aisle, even if Obama does.
Free market must stay in tact. That is what we are in this country. Many countries don't have it, and may have everyone "covered", but to what sacrifice? No say in what or how your government runs your programs.
So, who is it that wants bigger government? Who is it that IS bigger government? The democrats.
And, it's been an 8 yr complaint by the liberals, that Bush has had big government. Well, government run health care, and Obama's stimulus program (welfare checks for those who don't pay taxes), is all of that and then some.
Double standard as usual. Nothing new coming to Washington, just a lot of fancy talk by Obama.

[spartan fan]

No we do not need government run health care. Health decisions should be between YOU and your doctor without government involvement. Why can't we go back to fee for service. When you go get a check up the fees are posted and you decide if the doctor is worth the value. The you can buy catastophic ins for major problems.

The reason care is so expensive is that we are paying for care for everyone who doesnt pay for themselves, i.e. illegals.

[Mr. Tang (The Socialist)]

"Health decisions should be between you and your doctor?" Baa, Baa! It's one thing to blindly buy into the private insurance industry rhtoric, but parroting their awesome slogans is priceless! Like your insurance company doesn't dictate what procedures or medications you can receive?

[Andrew Smith]

They do not dictate what you can and can not receive; they dictate the policies and procedures for which they will pay. That's perfectly logical and why choice and competition is always a better solution than a government-managed debacle. Bigger government begats bigger government, which begats more money out of your pocket to fund more badly managed and ineffective government programs like Medicare, Social Security, welfare, you name it. Why is it that we ignore the successes of the last 200 years and focus on the failure that is today? This country had led the world with a profit-based capitalist economic system, until the heavy hand of federal government smackdown ruined it, ceding power over our health decisions to huge corporations. If you're so concerned about the power of insurance companies to dictate procedures and medications, why on earth wouldn't you be concerned about the federal government doing the same thing? Why would the government manage a huge national healthcare system any better than it has managed any of other huge national programs? This makes no sense.

Jon, I think you're also misunderstanding the role of the Constitution in this. The Constitution does not put limits on what WE can do, it limits what the government of the United States can do. Anything not explicitly granted as a delegated power to the federal government is reserved to the states. I have read the Constitution many times, and never have I seen anything in it which conferred any power on any agency of government to manage our healthcare or economy to this extent. By attempting to do so, the federal government has given rise to the occasion to commit the frauds and crimes we see today by big corporations, who have the power to influence politicians with their campaign contributions. The more government involvement in our lives, the more opportunity for this type of abuse exists.

As for the lack of taxes on profits making healthcare cheaper, that's nonsense. The only way that would happen is if the government sets the price. How's that working for the housing industry? Trying to manage pricing artificially never has the desired result. Corporations never pay taxes anyway, they pass them along to the consumer, but when taxes are removed on a mandated product, the cost won't come down. If the goal is to streamline and get rid of administration costs which are driving prices higher, then why would additional bureacracy solve it? I realize the temptation to just let the government take care of this and forget about it, but that is because the people are tired, frustrated, and have given up the will to deal with the problem. What appears to be the easiest solution frequently does not turn out to be the most effective.

[Bob Johnson]

"The impetus to reform or revolution springs in every age fron the realization of the contrast between the external order of society and the moral standards recognized as valid by the concience or reason of the individual." R.H. Tawney....our councience is telling us what we must do

[haggy]

Hey - with everything else we are doing - why not add on a national health care package. Get more spending and over-burdened government involvement to send us even farther into the dark pit of debt.

Between the TARP Trillion and now Obama's Trillion for getting the economy moving and the other 11 Trillion in the hole, not to mention a Social Security package that looks to be defunct and add a Trillion or two in a few years we are looking great to add a new package that will be sure to add at least 2 Trillion to the debt...