New Direction for Health Care?

As a self-employed American, I know first-hand the ridiculous, wasteful and burdensome state of our broken, pitiful health care system. Unlike many, I’m fortunate to barely afford the sky-high premiums of one of the few single-payer plans offered in New York State. And I’m horrified but not surprised that my premiums have increased by 20%, 20%, and 12% in the last three years. This year’s increase will add a whopping $1,227 to my already enormous insurance bill.

The recent drubbing of the GOP at the polls--a repudiation of the Bush Presidency--gave me new hope that our leaders would stop gorging themselves on health care lobby cash and finally focus on this critical issue, but history suggests otherwise. As Paul Krugman reminded us in today’s excellent New York Times Op Ed entitled A Healthy New Year, when the Clinton White House tried even modest changes to the system, the health-care industry went into overdrive to crush his plan, throwing mountains of money at lawmakers and the media.

More insidious and corrosive, however, are those citizens who believe Universal Health Care is somehow tantamount to socialism. Despite the fact that a Medicare-for-all system would significantly decrease the total cost of our collective medical burden (which, like global warming, is a consensus fact), naysayers can’t set their anger, bigotry and ignorance aside to embrace something that would benefit so many.

People against Universal Health Care rarely give informed or rational reasons to support their position, relying instead on jingoistic notions of capitalism and self sufficiency, or on old, tired stereotypes about Godless Communists or the French (who, by the way, have a better and less expensive health care system than ours). Their stance flies in the face of both compassion and utility, having more to do with raging against handouts benefiting others (usually minorities) while confusing Heath Care with Welfare. Their immoral “logic” goes like this; Giving health care to lazy poor people is the same as giving welfare to lazy poor people.

I believe it is far better to teach a person to fish than to give a person a fish, but Health Care is an entirely different issue. In fact, the “lazy poor” use emergency rooms for their health care, which increases costs for the rest of us. It is, instead, the hardworking middle who often don’t have coverage and are forced into bankruptcy when a medical crisis occurs. Many people make enough to afford food and shelter but can’t afford single-payer health insurance premiums because they work for themselves, for small businesses or for the growing numbers of huge corporations like Wal-Mart who go out of their way to designate workers as part-time employees.

As Democrats take control of Congress and begin to address the wide array of important issues fat, greedy Republican lawmakers were paid to ignore, I’m sure I’ll hear a new raft of heartless, irrational whiners trying to keep HMOs and Insurance Companies in record profits while the rest of us suffer. As they try to smear and label anyone not in their camp, their anger, rage and bitterness will become increasingly apparent. But will that help to turn the tide and force lawmakers to provide health benefits for all? Will we be able catch up to the rest of the civilized world and create a system that we can be proud of, instead of the disgraceful system our wealthy lobbyists bribe politicians to maintain? I hope so. But if not, we should ridicule and shun those who put their immoral, selfish agendas in the way of progress and decency. Shame on them.

Healthy New Year.

- JT Compton