The idea that we might all try to cooperate and collaborate in the interests of developing a new and better health care system that serves the needs of all Americans appears to be vanishing rapidly out of the windows of buildings in Washington. Perhaps the best we can now hope is that the pragmatism for which President Obama is frequently lauded will manage to win out over some of the hyperbolic pontificating so commonly indulged in by the talking heads who love to hear themselves speak.
Why is it that the health insurance industry apppears to be so terror-struck by a “government run” health care option that I certainly don’t expect to be as good as what is currently available to federal employees? It’s not as though such a plan would actually be that attractive to people if they can afford something else!
Why did the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Association (PhRMA) decide to cough up $80 billion over the next 10 years as their contribution to health care reform (assuming that we can get a bill passed at all)? Was that the price agreed to let them stay in the room while the discussions continued?
What does the American public really want?
At least one well known market researcher has said we are as confused about out own desires as we were when the Clintons made a mess by trying to ram “Hilary-care” down everyone’s throats. But if you ask certain questions in certain ways, you will get answers that seem to conflict with each other. It seems perfectly reasonable to me that some 70+ percent of Americans want health care reform but are also happy with the level of care they are personally getting. Health care reform isn’t about your or my individual health care. It’s about relative equity of access to health care generally, and the fact that all of our priorities are completely skewed.
The current system has little to do with health care and everything to do with economics. Everyone with skin in the game is driven first and foremost by the income and/or the profit motive. This is entirely understandable given the historic model of health services in the USA — but the model is broken and it’s time for change.
Here are the five simplest and most straightforward reasons why we need reform:
- About 50 million Americans no longer have health care coverage at all (that’s nearly 17 per cent of the whole country or one in six people).
- If we don’t do something soon, there will be no Medicare — and what do you think will happen then?
- Despite constant claims from some quarters that “America has the best health system in the world,” we don’t. Actually, among the developed nations, the American health care system is demonstrably among the worst, according to many different criteria.
- Almost none of the players in the American health care sector are driven today by the idea that one should help people to avoid illness. In fact, we are so busy creating new “illnesses” for people to worry about that we have forgotten about preventive care entirely.
- Half of the media reports about “health” on the nightly news programs have almost nothing to do with health and wellness but are entirely focused on hysteria about swine flu, the quality of one’s skin tone and how to get rid of “unsightly wrinkles.”
If you want to see a health care system in America that will care for you as you age, and help us all to avoid at least the more avoidable disorders of youth and of aging, we need reform; we need it now; and we need to put a system in place that puts the real health of all Americans at the top of the priority list — as opposed to the very latest way to carry out face transplants or improve one’s sexual function.
Call your congressmen and congresswomen now. Demand reform. Yes the devil will be in the details, but the details can be worked out over time. Without basic reform now, we will have to try again when we are in real crisis, and then we won’t be half as well served as we can be today.
Filed under: health economics
