Progressive Ponderings: Do We Need Private Insurers?
by Joe Mayer
The good news is that President Obama is living up to his campaign promise to reform the American healthcare system. The bad news is that President Obama is living up to his campaign promise to reform the American healthcare system without inviting the majority of Americans who desire single-payer healthcare coverage to the table.
For over two decades the majority has favored a single-payer government system. At the White House National Summit on health on March 5, of the approximately 120 participants NO single-payer advocates were invited until two days before convening.
Until our recent financial disaster, the most despised corporate industry in the U. S. was the HMO/Health Insurance/Pharmaceutical industry. Only by destroying our economic system was Wall Street able to leapfrog this threesome. Yet, the HMOs were at the Summit. The health insurance companies were there, as was the pharmaceutical industry. This is not the “change-we-can-believe-in.” Rather, it cements the health insurance and HMO industries as the solution that adds nothing to advancing our nation’s health.
A few days prior to the Summit this troika offered this compromise: If Congress and the administration pass a law forcing every American to buy private health insurance, people with pre-existing conditions would be covered and without extra cost. The most common action on Capitol Hill – democrat and republican – was to fawn and coo over this magnanimous offer. This is Blackmail! This is what the corporate takeover of government looks like! This is what money in politics purchases!
Estimates of how much the healthcare insurance industry and HMOs siphon off our healthcare dollars are as high as 31%, $.31 of every dollar without adding a doctor, a nurse, any practitioner or researcher to actually improve the health of American consumers.
United States healthcare costs about 17% of GDP (gross domestic product). This is up from 8% about ten years ago and is projected to reach 25% by the year 2025. No nation can support this magnitude of expense. No other nation spends nearly as much per capita on healthcare. The other industrialized nations, all with some sort of government healthcare, meet or exceed the outcomes of our American health system.
Until the mortgage bubble burst, healthcare costs were the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.; it transitioned more people into poverty, and damaged the health of Americans by limiting healthcare access and causing mental anguish.
Do we need private insurers? Why shouldn’t the public have access to a single-payer system?
(NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles about healthcare reform written by our colleague Joe Mayer.)
The good news is that President Obama is living up to his campaign promise to reform the American healthcare system. The bad news is that President Obama is living up to his campaign promise to reform the American healthcare system without inviting the majority of Americans who desire single-payer healthcare coverage to the table.
For over two decades the majority has favored a single-payer government system. At the White House National Summit on health on March 5, of the approximately 120 participants NO single-payer advocates were invited until two days before convening.
Until our recent financial disaster, the most despised corporate industry in the U. S. was the HMO/Health Insurance/Pharmaceutical industry. Only by destroying our economic system was Wall Street able to leapfrog this threesome. Yet, the HMOs were at the Summit. The health insurance companies were there, as was the pharmaceutical industry. This is not the “change-we-can-believe-in.” Rather, it cements the health insurance and HMO industries as the solution that adds nothing to advancing our nation’s health.
A few days prior to the Summit this troika offered this compromise: If Congress and the administration pass a law forcing every American to buy private health insurance, people with pre-existing conditions would be covered and without extra cost. The most common action on Capitol Hill – democrat and republican – was to fawn and coo over this magnanimous offer. This is Blackmail! This is what the corporate takeover of government looks like! This is what money in politics purchases!
Estimates of how much the healthcare insurance industry and HMOs siphon off our healthcare dollars are as high as 31%, $.31 of every dollar without adding a doctor, a nurse, any practitioner or researcher to actually improve the health of American consumers.
United States healthcare costs about 17% of GDP (gross domestic product). This is up from 8% about ten years ago and is projected to reach 25% by the year 2025. No nation can support this magnitude of expense. No other nation spends nearly as much per capita on healthcare. The other industrialized nations, all with some sort of government healthcare, meet or exceed the outcomes of our American health system.
Until the mortgage bubble burst, healthcare costs were the number one cause of bankruptcy in the U.S.; it transitioned more people into poverty, and damaged the health of Americans by limiting healthcare access and causing mental anguish.
Do we need private insurers? Why shouldn’t the public have access to a single-payer system?
(NOTE: This is the first in a series of articles about healthcare reform written by our colleague Joe Mayer.)
Labels: health insurance, healthcare, HMO, single-payer
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