Guest editorial on health care

(Canyon County Democrats)

by Judy Ferro, Chair

                I like to think that Americans are “can do” people who, when they see a problem, work at it until they find a solution. 

                Well, we have a problem—a health care system that is costly, unfair and results in far more deaths than necessary.   Can we at least agree on the need to do something?

                Based on the death rates for most illnesses, the U.S. health system ranks 37^th best in the world.  Some blame our varied gene pool, our access to cigarettes and drugs, or our obesity.  Does anyone really believe Americans are inherently less healthy than Colombians or Saudi Arabians?  Or that we smoke, eat and drink more—or worse—than the Irish, Italians or French?   

Even though  90 million Americans are covered by Medicare or Medicaid, another  45.8 million  are uninsured.   Some argue that is by choice, but we know that 36 million have low incomes.  And many others may be part of the 1/3^rd of those who attempt to buy private health insurance who are denied—or offered extra high premiums—because of “pre-existing” conditions.

                Each year 2,000,000 Americans file bankruptcy for medical reasons.

                Each year 20,000 uninsured Americans die for lack of treatment.  Many others suffer major illnesses because a minor one was taken care of. 

                We have no idea of the entire impact on the economy.  How many small businesses  close  because of medical bills?  How many Americans never even try to start a business because of pre-existing conditions?  How many healthy, productive workers are never hired because they’d bring up premiums for everyone in the company? 

                And we pay more per person than any other country. 

Insurance companies allocate 31% of premiums for administration—$385 billion each year.   (Compare that to 3% for U.S. Medicare and less than 1.8% for the Canadian system.)  

The CEO of Aetna was paid $24 million last year.  Does anyone believe he earned that by seeing that the insured got good care?  No, he is worth that because Aetna took in millions more in premiums than it paid in benefits.  What if he—and other CEOs—had received only $10 million each? 

Senators Baucus (D) and Grassley (R) just released the fifth of the current health plans before Congress—the first that would have required everyone to buy health insurance.  Is it surprising that they’ve received $2.8 million and $2.0 million, respectively, from health care lobbyists?   

So, please, the next time someone says we can’t trust the government to intervene, ask them who is going to solve the problem?  And how does their solution differ than the status quo? 

I belonged to a great health care co-op in Seattle.  America has them—and we still have the problem. 

I received lots of offers to join groups to buy insurance when we had a family business—at rates about four times what my school district paid.   We have buying co-ops—and we still have the problem.

Please, tell me what we should do differently.