I wrote a paper on this in 2004 right before the presidential elections. Here are excerpts about the state of our national health care then. I think many of these stats have gotten worse.
According to a study by the National Academy of Sciences 44 million Americans or 16% do not have health insurance and many more are underinsured. More ominously in another study it was found that 18,000 unnecessary deaths occur each year because of lack of health insurance.
Out of 225 nations, according to the CIA World Factbook, infant mortality rates, a criteria used by global health care watchdog groups to judge the effectiveness of the health care of a given nation, Angola ranked first and Singapore 225th with the lowest infant mortality rate. The USA ranked at 185.
Yet according to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, we are spending $5267 per capita (2002), which is 14.6% of our GDP. This is 140% of the OECD average of $2144 per capita, 8.5 % of GDP, in other developed countries of the world. These nations seem to have also achieved universal coverage, which we haven’t.
I focused on Bush’s plan which is the right wing’s plan and it seems to be leaking on to DU today. I took this off his campaign website back then and this is what I wrote.
This is President Bush’s plan, a complicated scheme to privatize all health care and divert even more of the taxpayer’s health care dollars to the for profit health care industry. This is at the bottom of our health care problems. Our health care dollars are not going to pay the physicians and health care givers, nor are they going for the health care of the patient but into the pockets of the executive officers of these corporations and the profits of Wall Street investors. Here are some of the highlights.
President Bush has proposed:
Health Savings Accounts—this scheme involves insurance companies selling health savings accounts with an HSA Deductibility—under this proposal, taxpayers can set up tax-sheltered accounts similar to IRAs and then use the proceeds to pay out-of-pocket health costs and premiums. Very few low income people will find such accounts useful. They are beneficial mainly to people in higher tax brackets.
Prescription Drug Benefit under Medicare—Prescription Drug cards. Drug discount cards have always been available. According to Doctor Howard Dean the $540 billion Medicare Prescription bill will send more dollars to HMO’s pharma companies and insurance companies than to our seniors.
The worst part of this prescription benefit is that in 2006 it will succeed in privatizing Medicare and force seniors into HMOs in order to receive drug benefits. The end result is no choice in health care providers, tight restrictions on health care benefits, a smaller pool of health care providers and benefits being decided by the accounting offices not a physician.
Also, with private health plans proclivity for cherry picking the healthy and denying coverage to the ill, more seniors will find themselves without necessary health care and prescriptions while rosy profits are posted in Wall Street for the corporations at taxpayer’s expense. When it comes to entitlement programs, the corporatists always proclaim that the marketplace should determine the cost, yet when it comes to them, they have no problem with entitlements and corporate welfare when they benefit from it.
Strengthened Medicaid and SCHIP (State Children’s Health Insurance Program)—According to Dr. Howard Dean, 500,000 children and one million adults have been kicked off Medicaid as the disastrous increase in federal deficits are passed along in the form of service cuts and higher taxes to state and local governments.
Provide a Health Insurance Tax Credit. A family earning $25,000 or less could receive a “refundable tax credit” or government payment of up to $3,000 towards the purchase of health insurance. However, the average family health insurance policy in 2003 cost $9,000 if employer provided. An individual policy would be even more. So a family earning less than $25,000 still has to pay $6,000 out of pocket. This would be a quarter of their total income and if they actually used the insurance, they would have to pay deductibles and co-pays as well.
Association Health Plans—the idea is that small businesses can organize themselves into associations to purchase health insurance collectively at lower rates. What a great idea, but businesses are already free to do this and many do already. But wait a minute. Bush’s proposal would exempt such associations from regulations that currently prohibit discrimination against individuals based on health status. This new provision could provide favorable rates for the young and healthy. The ill and aged will have to look elsewhere.
Bush’s plan it is estimated would cost between $91 and $100 billion over ten years. How does he intend on paying for it? He proposes cutting two programs that actually help people get health care, Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program or SCHIP.
Of course the prescription drug plan for seniors has passed and we can see that we now have less than we did then because the pharma companies can charge whatever we want today. The whole plan was written by the insurance, HMO and drug company lobbyists. We can do better.
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