Money better spent on universal health care than on failed war

by David Grand
January 17, 2007

Whether you agree with me or not, providing health care for all Americans is an issue that's not going away. And with Sen. Edward Kennedy now urging the federal government to join Massachusetts in enacting universal health care, it stands a better chance of receiving a fairer hearing in Congress that it got in 1993, when Bill Clinton proposed a significant health reform package.

That plan, referred to derisively as "Hillary Care," was DOA in Congress, due to the effective campaign launched against it by conservatives and the insurance industry, notwithstanding  the fact that most Americans said health care was the most important issue facing the country, and that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not guarantee access to health care as a right of citizenship.

As stated in a speech Dr. John Battista gave in 1999 before the Association of State Green Parties, the prevailing myths about universal health care are:

• The U.S. has the best health care system in the world. Facts: the U.S. ranks 23rd in infant mortality, 20th in life expectancy for women,  21st for men and 67th in immunizations (right behind Botswana).
• Universal health care would be too expensive. Facts: The U.S. spends 40 percent more per capita on health care than any of the 28 countries with universal health care; studies by the Congressional Budget Office and General Accounting Office shows that single payer, universal health care would save 100 to 200 billion dollars per year, despite it covering all the uninsured (of which there's about 45 million, including nine million children) and increasing health care benefits.
• Universal health care would deprive citizens of needed services. Facts: Citizens of countries with universal health care have more doctor visits and more hospital days than in the U.S.; comparisons of difficulties in accessing health care are greater in the U.S. than in Canada; and access to health care in the U.S. is directly related to income and race, resulting in the poor and minorities in worse health than the wealthy and whites.
• Universal health care would result in loss of Freedom of Choice. Fact: There would be free choice of health care providers under universal health care  administered by a state public health system, unlike our current corporate-managed care system in which people are forced to go to providers on the insurer's approved lists to obtain benefits.
• Problems with U.S. health care system are being solved by private corporations. Facts: For profit corporations are the least efficient deliverers of health care, spending between 20 and 30 percent of premiums on administration, as contrasted with Medicare which spends 3 percent on admin costs; and that  80 percent of Americans and 70 percent of doctors believe that managed health care has caused the quality of care to suffer as a consequence.

So why is it, you may well ask, that the U.S. doesn't have single payer, universal health care, when its the most efficient, most  democratic and most equitable means to deliver health care to one and all?

The simple answer is, that health care corporations have been able, through campaign contributions and control of the media, to prevent it from being enacted into law. But hopefully their influence peddling and strong arm tactics won't succeed in the 110th Congress, now that Kennedy is chairman of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over numerous health issues. If he can't ramrod it through Congress, nobody can.