More for Less
Health Care. You really begin to understand how important it is when you get cancer and become the pariah of the companies in charge of US health insurance. Then you realize how the health insurance industry is killing the US, starting with the lowest income bracket. But don't be fooled. It's up to the middle brackets now, and you're next.
Why don't we have a national health care system? Because the health insurance industry is spending millions of dollars (twice as much as four years ago) to scare you with the bogeyman of socialism. Hello, the Cold War is over. It's time to move on, and stop paying more for less.
Because that's what we're doing. Compare the US with Canada, which has a national health care system. Their per person health care costs are 70% of ours, and they have a lower infant mortality rate, a lower rate of heart disease, and longer life spans. You quickly understand why 3 out of 4 US citizens wants the Canadian system, but not even 1 in 30 Canadians want ours.
The health insurance industry would be quick to point out that a national health care system would saddle us with rationed care, a horde of bureaucrats, and loss of doctor choice. But they fail to point out that we already have these problems, to a lesser degree than do those under national health care systems. Care in the US is already rationed. It is not only rationed by the way the health insurance companies deal with their customers, but also by the fact that only those who can afford health care get it. Remember, you are legally entitled to health insurance, not affordable health insurance. The health care industry has hordes of administrators, more than the government would have. These same administrators restrict the care doctors can give, and limit the choices doctors have in treating patients.
If I've calmed your fears about the bogeyman of socialism, the health insurance industry has another one: high taxes. They say a national health care system would increase taxes. Well, duh. On the other hand, you don't want to forget that 70% figure. What it means is that the increase in taxes you will pay is less than the money you will save by not paying for health insurance and care. Sure, you'll be paying higher taxes, but overall you'll be paying less. 30% less. You want another number to wrap your mind around? Try $600 less. Maybe not a lot, but remember that it's for better care.
Health insurers also like to talk about the extra tests that would be run by doctors under a national health care system, to make up for lost revenues. The fact is, you're already paying for those tests. You might as well be getting them. Case in point: every three weeks I get an injection at the UVa hospital, supposedly one of the top 100 hospitals in the country. Up until last year they were charging me $30 for a physical exam every time I got an injection, a physical exam I never received. When I complained, they would remove one false charge and add another the next time I got an injection. When I complained louder, they started losing my checks, and demanding double payment for services rendered. Only when I threatened fraud charges did they stop.
Of course, they didn't really stop. Within 6 months they started charging me for a different procedure when I got injections, one that costs $3 more. When I complained they ignored me. When I complained again they ignored me. Feeling it would be silly to file fraud charges for $3, I complained again. Finally I got results. They charged me for BOTH procedures.
To this day no one can explain how the forms showing the procedure I was given were changed between the nurse who gave it to me and the accountant who billed me for it. No one, that is, except the guy I know who used to audit UVa. In those audits they found it was a systematic policy at the managerial level to charge for more expensive procedures and for procedures not given. If this is one of our best hospitals, think about what happens in our worst hospitals. While you're at it, think about those who don't pay as much attention to their bills as I do. The poor ones. Perhaps even the Hispanics, of whom 1 in 3 is not insured. Can we say ethnic cleansing, boys and girls? See, I've got bogeymen of my own.
You want to know what really convinces me? It's not all the facts above. Which are facts, whatever the health insurance industry or those scared by ghosts of the Cold War will tell you. A little research and you can find those facts yourself. It's not even the fact that I've personally been ripped off for health care. It's my father that convinces me.
My father is no raving liberal. Far from it. He is a staunch republican and conservative. My father is also probably the smartest man I have ever known. Top of his Yale Med School class. World renowned in his field in his day, although he is retired now. He has also worked as a doctor both under national health care systems, and in the US recently. It has made him a proponent of a national health care system. Why? Because he is a doctor that cares about people, and he knows that a national health care system will care for people too.
Thanks to Sherry Robinson for doing much of the research for this
article.
Last Modified 9/28/99
Created 9/28/98