Staggering Immorality

The whole health care “debate,” if you can call our national shouting match a debate is very disheartening for about a dozen reasons. The truth has been distorted by a coordinated campaign of scare tactics and disinformation; right-wing crazies have been let off their leashes, and what should have been a serious national conversation about how we care for our young, our sick, our infirm and our elderly has been cast as socialism and a government take over of private health insurance.

It’s total bullshit. The truth is that health insurance companies bring nothing to the health care table. All insurance companies do is cherry-pick the healthy and blacklist the sick so that they collect premiums and avoid paying claims. That’s how the formula works, and if you check insurance company profits, this formula works really, really well. Naturally, the insurance companies and their powerful lobbies want nothing to do with a “public” option or with any government intervention that might tilt the equation in favor of patients rather than profits.

Medicare is a single-payer health insurance plan. Patients choose any physician who accepts Medicare, access the care they need, and Medicare pays the bill. The physicians and laboratories are not in the employ of the government – all the government does is facilitate payment to providers for services rendered. Socialized medicine? Old Karl Marx wouldn’t recognize it as such. No reasonable person would, either. Smart people understand that Medicare’s administrative expenses are absurdly low compared to private insurance companies.

Why does the United States treat health care like a commodity – like oil or soybeans or rubber – while every other industrialized nation treats it as a human right that will, sooner or later, need to be exercised by every one? Why do we spend more per capita on health care and have crummier outcomes than almost every other nation on the planet? Why are so many Americans uninsured or under-insured?

Capitalism, baby, the free market myth that claims government can do no right and unfettered business no wrong.

Too many of the big players – Senators, Representatives, Administration officials -- who are supposed to be working on our behalf to improve our silly system are pimps, sluts or whores, with cozy monetary ties to health insurance companies or the health lobby that render them incapable of doing regular citizens any good. In other words: they have a vested interest in maintaining or enhancing the status quo, not helping working people gain access to affordable health care.

My employer’s health insurance premium went up by something in the neighborhood of $1.5 million this year, an increase that must be passed on to everyone covered under the plan. So, deductibles for office visits rise, co-pays rise, some services are reduced or eliminated altogether, and employees see less take home pay at the end of each month. Yes, we are damn fortunate to have health insurance, but keep in mind that even people with insurance are very often overwhelmed by medical expenses and forced to declare bankruptcy. Small, medium and even large businesses cannot afford sky high premiums either. A couple of more years of $1.5 million premium increases may force my employer to drop health insurance coverage – adding another 2,000 souls to the ranks of the uninsured.

Our health insurance system isn’t about health – it’s all about money, lots of money, which is why it’s so hard to change.