Udderly Ridiculous

June 4, 2009
The Milkman’s Son
By Tracy C. Baker
Udderly Ridiculous #134
A Big Ball of Squirrels

Sunday morning, a nice day, I am out walking the dog when I spot what looks like two squirrels fighting with each other while clinging to the side of a telephone pole.

Plop!

The squirrels fall off the pole, down onto the hood of a car and five, count them five squirrels scatter to the wind. Nothing like a ball of squirrels to start off your Sunday.

Correlations

Now picture this. All through the campaign we heard from everyone with “D” after their name how the Health Care system was going to fixed and made affordable for all. Like that ball of squirrels they all seemed to be hanging from the same telephone pole and shouting out this promise. The plans may have been somewhat different, but the outcome was the same, affordable healthcare for all!

So, the election came, we voted them all in, healthcare is now on the table, and…like that ball of squirrels they have fallen of the telephone pole into a pot of money from the Health Insurance industry and scattered to the winds.

And affordable healthcare for all, i.e. Single Payer Universal care?

“It’s not on the table.”

“We are considering a “public option.”

“We could never get it passed.”

“It was never on the table.”

To which I reply…WHY?

The Obfuscation Shuffle
Let me start off by busting a few myths.

Contrary to Republican tripe, Fox News Channel and their entire ilk, WE DO NOT have the best healthcare system in the world. We actually rank #37 between Costa Rica and Slovenia.

Our prenatal, neonatal, pediatric and geriatric systems are even worse. Our infant mortality is worse than the European Union as a whole. Our life expectancy has been dropping as a percentage of the whole. In other words, we don’t take very good care of our average citizens, and we take even worse care of our kids and senior citizens.

The cost of our system is astronomical as well. The percentage we spend on healthcare is nearly double that of other countries – 15.3% as of 2007 and estimated to be on the verge of breaking 16% today. In comparison, Japan’s percentage is 8%. (They are also ranked in the top 10 of quality)

Our costs have risen from 300% to 1,000% AND MORE over the past 20 years.

On average 20+ percent of every dollar paid toward medical insurance goes to administration, paying bloated CEO salaries, advertising and lobbying. The CEO of United Healthcare walked away with a package worth 1.6 BILLION dollars! Wonder where all that co-pay money goes? It certainly isn’t toward better medical care.

Myth #2 – Canadian, British and European systems don’t work.
You can’t get in to see a doctor when you want to, you have to wait in long lines and get on waiting lists for surgery. When you do get a doctor they are often inexperienced as all the good doctors come to the U.S. (Then they trot out one or two people they say are from Canada or Britain to tell some horror story which are for the most part easily debunked with a bit of journalistic research.)

Frankly all of this is a straw dog that is complete and utter claptrap! As Michael Moore showed in Sicko, these systems actually work very well. Canada and Britain do have problems, most of which can be traced directly to conservatives attempts to dismantle these systems in the 80s. Yet, for the most part, if you want to see a doctor, you see a doctor. If you need surgery, you get it. If you need a prescription, pick it up at the pharmacy on your way out. The costs run from $0 for most actions to maybe $10 as a co-pay. No deductibles, no limits, and no HMO administrator denying your claim.

The top 20 in healthcare are almost exclusively countries that have a single payer universal health plan. These countries also BAN private insurance companies from offering general care insurance. Insurers can offer ancillary care such as private hospital rooms or plastic surgery, but it is illegal for them to offer regular medical care in competition with the government plan.

Why? Having everyone in the system makes it much cheaper to offer QUALITY healthcare to everyone, pay doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers a fair wage, and keep hospitals and clinics stocked with the best equipment possible.

Now the tough part for most Americans; this is all paid for through taxes. I know, God forbid we should have to pay anymore taxes. Especially to that big, bad government! Well, guess what. You pay a lot more than what it would cost you in those taxes right now…a lot more. Uninsured person goes to the Emergency room to get a cut hand stitched up? You pay for it. Underinsured person defaults on their portion of the hospital bill? You pay for it. Mother doesn’t get a measles shot for their child because they can’t afford it, the child develops measles, spreads it around the school, ends up in the hospital? You pay for it.

Also, take a look at your paycheck. Don’t like the amount? Think you should be paid more? Sorry, the company you work for just received notice that their healthcare provider has raised rates by 25%. The company can’t afford that because their CEO is pulling down 800% of the average worker’s salary and their stock is in the toilet. The solution…if you want health coverage you’re going to have to pay more every month…and by the way, we no longer will pay anything toward your dependent coverage…and even if you would want to pay the exorbitant costs to cover your spouse and children, the insurance company doesn’t want to cover them because of “existing medical conditions”…oh, and your deductable and co-pays are going up…way up…and the health insurance company just dropped your doctor…and your hospital.

By the way, we can’t afford to give you a raise this year….in fact, your being laid off in just a couple months, but don’t worry, you’ll have COBRA benefits…which you won’t be able to afford on unemployment…and…well, you get the point.

Myth #3 – Do You Want The Government Bureaucracy Running Your Healthcare?

Actually, yes, I do. There are already two Single Payer Universal Healthcare programs being run quite efficiently by the Federal Government – Medicare and the Veterans Administration. Despite Republican attempts over the past 30 years to gut these programs, especially Medicare, they are still being run well. Medicare has an overhead cost of around 4-5%. That equates to 95-cents of every dollar the government collects for Medicare being spent directly on health benefits. The Veterans Administration Hospitals are some of the finest and most efficient hospitals in the country. Despite chronic underfunding they provide some of the best care to be found anywhere. I’m not just a champion of the system, I’m a patient. I have spent the last 8 years having my “pre-existing condition”, my esophagus, taken care of by one of the premiere Gastroenterologists in the world at the VA Hospital in Palo Alto.

Medicare has many problems. It protects the most destitute in our country, our senior citizens from total health and financial ruin. As signed into law by Lyndon Johnson, it is truly a wonderful system. Unfortunately, it has been subject to Republican attack over and over again. They have relentlessly chipped away at the benefits and coverage for 30 years, leaving Medicare on the verge of bankruptcy. They have consistently lowered the doctor and hospital payments to the point that many doctors cannot afford to take Medicare patients.

When Medicare Part D for Prescription drugs coverage was destined for passage, the GOP slipped in a provision WRITTEN BY THE PHARMA INDUSTRY that forbids Medicare from negotiating costs with them. Thus a pill that costs the Canadian government 10 cents cost the U.S. Government $10. It is typical of Republicans to destroy something and then turn around and say, “See, I told you it doesn’t work!”

The Only Solution IS Single Payer

Single Payer Universal Health coverage takes healthcare coverage out of the for-profit corporations and puts it back where it belongs, in the hands of the people. Healthcare is not a privilege, a nice-to-have option, it is a right guaranteed to us in our own Declaration of Independence – “LIFE, LIBERTY, and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINEFF” (Oh, sorry, those “s”s looked a lot like “f”s back then.) “PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS”

The very legal definition of a corporation should be enough to bar it from being involved in your health in any way, shape or form. A for-profit corporation has a duty to its shareholders to do one thing – MAKE MONEY. Their job is to collect your money…and keep it at all costs. They spend nearly 3 billion dollars a year lobbying Congress just to keep the system the way it is. And how is it? If you are healthy and not costing them money, they want you, but if you’re sick and need help now, they will find every way possible to delay or deny you coverage in the hope that you will either find another funding source or you will die and go away.

Don’t take my word for it. Unlike the anti crowd who will parade out one or two disgruntled Brits to tell you how bad Government healthcare is, there are thousands upon thousands of Americans who will gladly tell you their own Health insurance coverage horror story. I have collected five of them myself.

So who would you trust? A government agency who answers to you and has no agenda except to administer a fund for a specific purpose…or a Corporate CEO, whose only goal is to get rich at the expense of your health?

Now where is that ball of squirrels…

Fini

Tracy

Copyright 2009 The Milkman's Son and Tracy C. Baker, All rights reserved.