The Healthcare Crisis is the Employment Crisis

What if we could end the health care crisis dogging our nation -- and grow 2.6 million jobs at the same time?

The good news is we can. If America summons the courage, and the will, to resolve our health care crisis, we can provide our national economy with a genuine and long-term stimulus, and continue moving towards the kind of sustainable development with quality jobs that our nation desperately needs.

A new study released today by the Institute for Health and Socio-Economic Policy (IHSP) January 13 reveals the details.

Moving to a guaranteed health care system would provide a major stimulus for the U.S. economy by creating 2.6 million new jobs -- the same number lost in 2008 -- and would infuse $317 billion in business and public revenues, and another $100 billion in wages, into the U.S. economy.

How does it do that? A registered nurse colleague who works in an emergency room in San Diego recently told us about a retired teacher in her ER. Just before the medical team began a tube into his chest to relieve life-threatening respiratory distress, he looked up at them, pleading, "can't you wait until next week when I turn 65 and am eligible for Medicare?"

Medicare, even with all the efforts to privatize and erode it, guarantees you are covered. It's elegant and streamlined, unlike our current system, where hundreds of plans set different rules for coverage, eligibility, extra charges, and, of course, denial of care.

No wonder, then, that patients and families facing financial calamity from illness can only wish they were eligible for Medicare.

And now we know, extending and expanding full Medicare to cover all Americans, not only fixes our health care system, it would be a massive step toward promoting our economic recovery.

Perhaps most astonishing, the cost is less than you might expect.

Adding all Americans to an expanded Medicare could be achieved for $63 billion beyond the current $2.1 trillion in direct health care spending. The $63 billion is six times less than the federal bailout for CitiGroup, and less than half the federal bailout for AIG. Solely expanding Medicare to cover all the uninsured Americans could be accomplished for $44 billion.

Moreover, the majority of additional cost -- and virtually all of it if you are just expanding Medicare to cover the uninsured -- would be recouped in federal tax revenues generated by the massive increase in jobs.

This IHSP studies breaks grounds by, for the first time, applying the lessons of econometrics to health care; that is, by measuring both direct and secondary effects of our health care system.

Overall, every direct health care dollar creates nearly three additional dollars in the U.S. economy, emphasizing what a uniquely dominant role health care plays in our national economy.

Such changes make intuitive sense to the RNs on the front lines of today's health care and economic crises. RNs like myself struggle on a daily basis with an out-of-control of health insurance industry that pressures patients to defer taking needed prescriptions or keeping a scheduled doctor's appointment because they can't pay the skyrocketing cost.

We have a moral obligation to end this American tragedy, and make sure that no one else ever passes away in the richest nation on earth because they are denied life-saving treatment. We have a financial imperative as well; our broken health care system now endangers our status as the richest nation on earth, and undermines the possibility for us and our children to achieve the American dream.

Comments

[RIchard Ungar]

I took a look at the study hoping that the conclusions would be as exciting as billed. As much as I would like to see the study be irrefutable, there are problems. Some of the more obvious issues would be that the study does not appear to compare and contrast the loss of jobs in the private insurance industry and, no doubt, others which are ancillary to the private system of insurance. I'm not suggesting I would miss the privates, but to really calculate the job gains, it is only fair to measure them against the resulting losses. Same goes for state and federal tax revenues. Don't we need to see how much would be lost when the private insurance industry is no longer in business and, therefore, not paying taxes? Another issue would appear to be a lack of sourcing for the figures the study uses.
When suggesting so major a change to the culture of the country, it would be a good idea to really pin down the details so as to better make the case.

[RN4MERCY]

We have the resources to provide health care to all who need it and as a nurse I agree with you; it's a moral imperative that we affirm the right to medically necessary care in this country. The IHSP study could serve as the blueprint for rebuilding our healthcare infrastructure and as the foundation for our economic recovery.
We've demonstrated courage and the wisdom to change what we can when we voted to elect Barack Obama as President. We've seen the things that are wrong with healthcare and the economy. The IHSP report proposes a credible solution and we should all be asking, "why not?"
Thanks, Deborah for sharing this important news and message of hope. The Congress and the President should waste no time implementing sound public policy based on the report's recommendations.

[Samalabear]

Yes, being unable to access healthcare is a bummer because you don't have insurance and because, even if you got the low-end policy your state offers (Healthy New York), it covers virtually -- nothing and those co-pays will kill you every time. I am 52, hoping that everyday I make it to 65, where I will hopefully finally be covered for something. Until then ... I pray a lot, meditate, eat healthy, take the right supplements, and get exercise, stay away from the pharmaceut­ical-pushi­ng docs at the clinic that I have to use since I don't have insurance. No, this clinic rarely proposed healthy lifestyles, just pills like anti-depessants, anti-psychotics, sleeping pills and other assorted goodies to deal with life problems.

The Medicare idea is great, but the emphasis must also be on real health care, not sick care -- preventive medicine, healthy living, etc. Being an RN and seeing what you do in the ER, you would understand that we also need this to make it all work and bring down costs even more. We also have to hold docs accountable because many of them are refusing to treat Medicare and Medicaid patients. Of course, if it's a level playing field they won't have a choice and this is good for all.

[marysandra]

Having recently turned 65, I know exactly how that retired teacher felt. The last few years have been marked by very large bills for private insurance and very skimpy coverage..
However, my experience working in a public health clinic causes me to point out that some of the biggest expense in State health care is the cost of Medicaid to non documented residents..Since they do not have Social Security cards, how would they be covered? Should they be covered by a system into which they do not contribute? Given their birth rate, the cost of their Medicaid is through the roof as it is.. Obviously, their children are citizens if born in the USA, but it is a rather knotty problem, I think, and an enormously costly one, in many of our states at present.

[Chaimirija]

This should be under big news or on the front page!