Working Fer The Man

Health Care Reform, It’s a No brainier

Health care reform, it’s a no brainier, and it’s called single payer.  Why is single payer better than pay-the-insurance-company health care?  Simple, insurance company’s “administration expenses” and profits add exorbitant overhead to every bill.  Time consuming paper work means additional labor for health care providers and staff.  A single payer system will streamline paperwork and dismantle the mountain of administrative costs.  The savings – nearly $400 billion annually – would be enough to cover all the uninsured and give first dollar coverage to everyone in the United States.

Single payer gets better results!  A recent World Health Organization study ranked the US 37th in the world in health care delivery – last among the so-called industrialized nations.  Government administered health care works better all over the world.  In Canada – where they have a single payer system – people live longer — 80 years compared to 77 years in the US, have a lower infant mortality rate – less than five percent as opposed to seven percent in the US.  But Canada spends half of what the US spends per-capita on health care. 

In the US your income defines the quality of your health care and your life.  The wealthy and people who work in companies that offer topnotch benefits – a number that will decrease in the time it takes you to read this – are among the minority who get quality care.   

Single payer health care could have help save the auto industry in the US despite executive mismanagement.  In the US every car GM builds has $1400 worth of health care costs embedded in it. The same car in Canada with a similar union contract costs GM substantially less to make and allows a greater profit for the company.

Sixty percent of personal bankruptcies filed every year in the United States are directly related to medical expenses, and a recent study shows that 3 out of 4 of those are filed by people with health insurance.

Insurance, drug and medical company lobbyists are spending millions –reportedly $1.4 million a day — to bribe our stalwart legislators and keep we the people shoveling our money into their coffers. Democrat Senator Max Baucus – who has received more campaign money from health and insurance donors than any other member of congress — refused to even discuss single payer in the Senate Finance Committee hearings on health care last month. His cohort Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee has his back.  They’ll be no single payer if this gentleman has anything to say.  Who does Grassley get his campaign funds from?

Grassley’s top four donor groups were Health ($411,956), Insurance ($307,348), Pharmaceuticals ($233,850), and Hospitals ($197,137).  Eighth on Grassley’s donor list were HMOs at $130,684.

There’s a bill in the Congress with 83 co-sponsors – HR676.  This bill would expand and improve Medicare and cover everyone in the country.  It would take our health care dollars and put them into care rather than into the mansions of noble insurance executives.  You remember them.  Some of them are the same Masters of the Universe who bankrupted our economy.

Single payer is a no brainer for our health, our pocketbooks and our “democracy.”  Any other solution that comes out of Washington will likely be just another health industry subsidy.  Can you afford it?  I know I can’t. 

 

***** Thanks to John Jonik for the cartoon ********