Access to affordable, high-quality healthcare should be the right of every American. The current system of relying on private insurance companies and allowing for-profit providers to dictate how we deliver healthcare is driving up costs, driving down outcomes and driving away people who need access to routine medical treatment.
Healthcare is a huge and increasing problem in our country. We all know this. From couples who struggle to pay for the birth of their children, to families who have to decide whether they can pay the house note or the latest insurance bill, to seniors unable to afford the co-pay on their medicines, the cost of healthcare is an enormous and growing burden on real people, real families, and real businesses.
The time has come for the United States to join the rest of the industrialized world and move to a single-payer program that provides healthcare for every one of our citizens, regardless of ability to pay. In order to do this, we will have to convert the healthcare industry to a public trust.
This move to a single-payer plan will drive down administrative costs, reduce fraud, reduce barriers to care, improve healthcare outcomes, and reduce the cost of healthcare to business, government and individuals.
The average American spends about $5,500 per year on healthcare. That’s almost 20 percent of the median income of a person living in the 7th District.
The Current Mess
Healthcare in the United States is a huge industry. Estimates are that we pay $1.7 trillion per year for healthcare. On a per capita basis, that’s more than double what citizens in any other country on earth pay. And still there are lots of us who can't afford to see a doctor when we need one.
You would think that our extravagant spending would bring us the best healthcare in the world. That’s a total myth. The reality, according to statistics gathered by the World Health Organization, is that healthcare in the United States ranks 37th in the world in terms of overall outcomes. In fact, we rank just behind Costa Rica.
The prime reasons for the poor performance of our existing system are the high cost of the care itself, and the cost of insurance for those fortunate enough to be covered.
One factor driving up the cost of healthcare is that almost 50 million Americans who can’t afford health insurance. Because they don’t have health insurance, they can’t afford to attend to routine health matters until the condition becomes too dramatic to ignore and self-treatment is no longer an option. As a result, when those folks finally do seek medical attention, the condition has usually gotten so much worse that it has become very expensive to treat.
For those folks who do not have health insurance and experience major health issues, the outcome is not good -- even if they do recover. More than likely, they will not be able to pay the bills resulting from their treatment. Two things then often happen, and neither of them are good.
First, the patient and/or the family of the patient will be forced into bankruptcy to pay the bill. Fifty percent of all bankruptcies involved costs incurred by illness in a family.
Second, the provider will raise the costs of services to other patients and their payers to cover the revenue lost on services provided to the uninsured.
That cost shifting drives up the cost of healthcare and health insurance to all, reinforcing the cost escalations that put healthcare and health insurance beyond the reach of ever growing numbers of Americans.
Meanwhile, for-profit healthcare corporations rack up big profits and pay their executives exorbitant salaries and bonuses. In addition, these companies have been involved in major scandals where they have ripped off Medicare and others. It is obscene for healthcare companies to profit while working Americans cannot afford access to care due to the actions of these companies which result in inflated costs.
The Path Out
The unrelenting rise in healthcare costs is not just taking its toll on you and me; it’s making American businesses less competitive against their foreign counterparts who have healthcare for their workers paid for by their home governments.
Current estimates are that the administration of the current healthcare system accounts for 31 percent of the cost of that system. Much of that is attributable to the burden that for-profit providers impose on the system — and on us. How do we know this? We know this because there is a world class single-payer system delivering healthcare to hundreds of thousands of Americans every day and its overhead runs at about one percent of total cost.
That institution? The U.S. Veterans Administration. The VA provides the best care in the country. It uses the most modern technology and it delivers it in ways that prolong the lives of those men and women who have borne the cost of keeping our country free.
We don’t need to look anywhere else for the system upon which to model our care. It’s a product made in the U.S.A. It’s public. It’s not for profit. And it points the way for this country to offer quality healthcare to every American.
As your congressman, I’ll make securing the right of every American to quality healthcare one of my top three priorities. The other two are: committing this country to energy independence within 10 years; and providing public financing of campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives.
For additional information on healthcare and single payer plans, go to:
Physicians for a
National Health Program
http://www.pnhp.org/
Healthcare for All
— California
http://www.healthcareforall.org/index.html