Beyond politics: Guns, not children
by Leigh Pomeroy
Suppose there were a Democratic president. And suppose, just for fun, this president's name was Edward O'Clinton. And suppose President O'Clinton knowingly used manipulated intelligence to bring the United States into a war that came to cost U.S. taxpayers $12 billion a week.
And suppose at the same time President O'Clinton opposed spending $12 billion a year to provide health care for poor children in this country — less than two percent of the cost of the war. Instead, he said that $6 billion a year was enough — less than one percent of the cost of the war — because to spend more would "open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."
Er, now wait a minute. Let me get this straight. President O'Clinton thinks it's great for the government to spend over $600 billion a year on killing, maiming and generally raising havoc, but it's not right for the government to spend $12 billion a year providing health care to children — some of whom may end up having to fight that same war some 15 years in the future, the way things are going.
No doubt the Republicans, wanting to take over the White House, would be hopping mad. And you know what, most Democrats would be hopping mad too, just like they were hopping mad when President Lyndon Johnson expanded the war in Vietnam. Indeed, there would be hell to pay on both sides, and Congress, exercising its constitutional duties, would do everything it could to exert its will overriding President O'Clinton's ill-conceived policies.
President O'Clinton, of course, is a fictional character. But the scenario is not. The madman in the White House is not a Democrat, but a Republican. And guns, not children, is his official policy.
Yet Congress is not hopping mad in this real scenario. Instead, both parties just seem to be going along for the ride. Their children and grandchildren are not having to fight the war. Their children and grandchildren have health care, much of it government funded. Why should they care about the children and grandchildren of ordinary American citizens?
Back to President O'Clinton. He has a reason for limiting health care for children. It's because he doesn't want "people to switch from private insurance to the government." Private insurance good, government bad. Right?
Wrong. As countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan have proven, and as U.S. programs operated by the Veterans Administration, Medicare and Medicaid have demonstrated, government can administrate its health care programs far more efficiently than private insurance can, spending as much as 50% less on administrative costs. And at the same time, their health care outcomes as good or better than those funded by private insurance companies.
So, President O'Clinton, your argument doesn't hold water.
So now let's talk about something else. Let's talk about those weapons of mass destruction....
(NOTE: Anyone who wants to know about how to cut health care costs while improving patient choice of provider and maintaining top quality outcomes should read Kip Sullivan's The Health Care Mess, available here.)
Suppose there were a Democratic president. And suppose, just for fun, this president's name was Edward O'Clinton. And suppose President O'Clinton knowingly used manipulated intelligence to bring the United States into a war that came to cost U.S. taxpayers $12 billion a week.
And suppose at the same time President O'Clinton opposed spending $12 billion a year to provide health care for poor children in this country — less than two percent of the cost of the war. Instead, he said that $6 billion a year was enough — less than one percent of the cost of the war — because to spend more would "open up an avenue for people to switch from private insurance to the government."
Er, now wait a minute. Let me get this straight. President O'Clinton thinks it's great for the government to spend over $600 billion a year on killing, maiming and generally raising havoc, but it's not right for the government to spend $12 billion a year providing health care to children — some of whom may end up having to fight that same war some 15 years in the future, the way things are going.
No doubt the Republicans, wanting to take over the White House, would be hopping mad. And you know what, most Democrats would be hopping mad too, just like they were hopping mad when President Lyndon Johnson expanded the war in Vietnam. Indeed, there would be hell to pay on both sides, and Congress, exercising its constitutional duties, would do everything it could to exert its will overriding President O'Clinton's ill-conceived policies.
President O'Clinton, of course, is a fictional character. But the scenario is not. The madman in the White House is not a Democrat, but a Republican. And guns, not children, is his official policy.
Yet Congress is not hopping mad in this real scenario. Instead, both parties just seem to be going along for the ride. Their children and grandchildren are not having to fight the war. Their children and grandchildren have health care, much of it government funded. Why should they care about the children and grandchildren of ordinary American citizens?
Back to President O'Clinton. He has a reason for limiting health care for children. It's because he doesn't want "people to switch from private insurance to the government." Private insurance good, government bad. Right?
Wrong. As countries like Canada, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan have proven, and as U.S. programs operated by the Veterans Administration, Medicare and Medicaid have demonstrated, government can administrate its health care programs far more efficiently than private insurance can, spending as much as 50% less on administrative costs. And at the same time, their health care outcomes as good or better than those funded by private insurance companies.
So, President O'Clinton, your argument doesn't hold water.
So now let's talk about something else. Let's talk about those weapons of mass destruction....
(NOTE: Anyone who wants to know about how to cut health care costs while improving patient choice of provider and maintaining top quality outcomes should read Kip Sullivan's The Health Care Mess, available here.)
Labels: Bush, health care, health insurance, Iraq, Medicaid, Medicare
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1 Comments:
Can we acknowledge that President Edward O’Clinton has failed on so many of his campaign issues --- tax fairness, Social Security reform, immigration reform, just to name a few --- that we should not be surprised that he would oppose something that he didn’t promote. As I recall the No Child Left Behind program was his reaction to the Democrats' Leave No Child Behind. We have to remember that President O’Clinton is an advocate of Bush-onomics. As I recall from a Concord Coalition (They’re a nonpartisan group that is passionate about only one thing - deficit reduction) study that George W. Bush’s tax proposals add up to a whopping $1.244 trillion over the next ten years. So how it would be fiscally prudent to add another Medical Coverage benefit after President O’Clinton’s Medicare Part-D Drug Prescription benefit. Remember Seniors Vote, but children don’t.
Since this issue is one that President O’Clinton will veto, isn’t the real question where does candidate Rudy McRooney stand ? John Edwards has put out a fairly detailed proposal and Barak Obama has also issued a plan (still not sufficient in my opinion.) Hilary seems to be avoiding details … but I’m sure the Republicans can probably review her First Lady Meeting minutes and create their own plan for her. But what we have seen thus far is NO LEADERSHIP … not just from the Executive Branch … but from CONGRESS. Why is that … well, how about lobbyists money … I haven’t looked at Hilary’s list of donors, but I bet that Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, and Physicians are sending lots of dollars her way (and other “connected” Democrats.) Last time John Kerry had a pretty good plan … Kerry plan would actually make health insurance less expensive for small businesses because they would be able to take a tax credit to offset 50 percent of the cost of offering employees coverage and because the catastrophic coverage would lower the payments for premiums, but that did not address the unemployed.
This is THE PRIME QUESTION that must be asked of every candidate for US House and Senate.
Let me close with some excerpts (there is a firewall that denies linking) from Nick Kristoff’s May 21 column :
How’s this for a glimpse into America’s health care mess:
The student winner I’ve chosen to accompany me on a reporting trip to Africa next month is a superb medical school student named Leana Wen. She receives her M.D. this month, and will research health care access this summer at a Washington think tank.
I asked Leana about her health insurance coverage, just in case she catches leprosy on the Africa trip.
“Actually, I was going to become one of the 45 million uninsured for the summer,” she said. “The think tank does not provide insurance for ‘temporary’ employees, and my school did not allow extension of health insurance post-graduation. I still haven’t found a reasonably priced insurance plan for this period.”
Aaaaargh! When a newly minted doctor investigating Americans’ access to medical care has no insurance — then you know that our health care system is truly bankrupt.
[SNIP]
The medical and insurance lobbies have been busy blocking national health care programs since they were first seriously proposed back in the 1920’s — and the result has been millions of premature deaths in this country because of people falling through the cracks. Doctors fighting universal coverage have been saving lives in their day jobs while costing lives with their lobbying.
Over all, a person without insurance is less likely to have diseases diagnosed early, less likely to get routine preventive care — and faces a 25 percent greater chance of dying early.
Americans with good jobs and complex needs receive superb medical care. But a child in Costa Rica born today is expected to live longer than an American child born today.
The U.S. now spends far more on medical care (more than $7,000 per person) than other nations, yet our infant mortality rate, maternal mortality rate and longevity are among the worst in the industrialized world. If we had as good a child mortality rate as France, Germany and Italy, we would save 12,000 children a year.
It is disgraceful that an American mother has almost three times the risk of losing a child as a mother in the Czech Republic. According to a new report from Save the Children, a woman in the U.S. has a 1-in-71 chance of losing a child before his or her fifth birthday.
Some speculate that America’s high infant mortality rate is partly a result of greater honesty about neonatal deaths or of more in vitro fertilizations. But even if those are factors, they don’t explain why a woman is 50 percent more likely to die in childbirth in the U.S. than in Europe.
The existing medical financing system also creates perverse incentives for expensive procedures; that may be why Americans are far more likely than Europeans to get C-sections. Meanwhile, the burden of paying for these second-rate statistical outcomes is crippling American business. By next year, the average Fortune 500 company will spend more on health care than it earns in net income, according to Steve Burd, the head of Safeway. Mr. Burd and other executives have formed the Coalition to Advance Healthcare Reform, creating a corporate constituency for national health reforms.
There’s evidence that the most efficient financing system would be a single-payer structure, such as that found in most Western countries. Some 31 percent of U.S. health spending goes to administration, more than twice the rate in Canada.
So bravo to Physicians for a National Health Program, a group of 14,000 doctors and other health professionals that favors a single-payer system.
[SNIP]
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And BRAVO to VoxVerax for keeping this issue at the forefront.
I believe the issue will be addressed because of US Industry … the question is will a system (program) be created that we will like?
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