The Progress Report wrote:
Don’t Withdraw Health Care Reform
From: The Progress Report [progress@americanprogressaction.org]
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 9:23 AM
To: tomc2322
Subject: Don’t Withdraw Health Care ReformKeep Health Care Reform
REFORM HELPS THE ECONOMY: With Congress and the White House currently embroiled in the debate over Obama’s economic recovery plan, it is important to point out that, as Baucus noted in a “Call to Action” last November,”the link between health care costs and the economy is incontrovertible.” “Health care reform is not a distraction from addressing our economic challenges; health care reform is an essential part of restoring America’s overall economy and the finances of our working families,” he said. Just this week, Jeanne Lambrew, deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform,framed the need for health care reform “as a response to the fiscal crisis,” noting that “[e]very one percent drop in employment means 1.1 million more uninsured, larger Medicaid rolls, more people relying on COBRA as transitional insurance.” She also pointed to a study “showing that half of families in foreclosure pointed to medical debt as a partial cause.” Indeed, premiums have skyrocketed over the last decade, hurting both families and employers financially. As a recent New America Foundation study concluded, “We must reform our struggling health system not in spite of our economic crisis, but rather because of the impact health care has on the American economy. The economic and social impact of inaction is high and it will only rise over time.” In fact, the growing health care burden has contributed significantly to U.S. automakers’ dwindling profits while states are struggling to finance their health care programs as unemployment increases and tax revenues falter. Not only have health care costs contributed to the current economic crisis, the crisis threatens Americans’ health. Doctors
are seeing “growing evidence that the ill economy is making patients sick, spawning headaches and churning stomachs, and even causing bouts of anxiety and depression among people who never before sought psychiatric help.”
Privatization is sometimes a bad thing.
We should approve health care reform because of the economy, not in spite of it. In many countries other than our own, a student goes to college from whatever brand of secondary education they have, for free. This is true in Germany and France, and at one time in our history it was true here. Taxpayers foot the bill and gladly so because the return on their money is enormous. Because of privatization we pay for services that could be paid by a single payer like the IRS general fund.
Health care for which we and our employers pay far too much money for is the result of privatization. I never hear any argument for privatization, only arguments against single-payer health care. The main argument I hear asks if we would rather have doctors make our medical decisions, or would we rather have government bureaucrats make them. I answer them by asking if they would rather have doctors make their medical decisions or would they rather have HMO or insurance bureaucrats make them.
We pay the insurance companies and we pay the medical facilities directly for services that other countries obtain for free, the cost coming from a central tax pool. No matter how the money is routed to the medical care facility for your surgery, either through a combination of direct and indirect payment, or through a single payer such as the government, the effect is the same. But the private medical industry and insurance industry have let profit motive get ahead of their purpose which is providing the best health car at the most affordable price. Greed and ambition have let the health care market spiral out of control in similar ways as the investment bankers have ruined the investment markets worldwide.
If the yoke of health care costs were lifted from the shoulders of our nation’s businesses, small and large, they could compete on equal footing in the 21st century global market. We’ve let big business and the radical right convince us that privatization of the health care industry is the best method because of competition. Theoretically, competition will hold down our prices, but if competition has held down the industry’s costs, we haven’t felt it in the price. The prices rise regardless of competition.
Free market theory and assumptions are false as evidenced by the near collapse of the deregulated financial market. Privatization cannot solve the problem of the poor and near-poor’s inability to obtain affordable health care. Government must take control to end the sky-rocketing costs and provide care for all. It’s the right thing to do.
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