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The Promise of Universal Health Care: An Open Letter to President Obama
Dear Mr. President,
You have given us the "audacity of hope" and the promise of change. You have vociferously indicated that our health care system is in need of major change. You have said that 50 million Americans are uninsured. Medicare is moving toward bankruptcy and taking down the economy with it. But where is the change, Mr. President?
It seems that the for-profit segment of the health care industry (pharmaceutical companies, AMA and the American Hospital Association) have got your ear. The same special interests that have given us the most expensive, poorest quality health care among developed countries (37th rank) are now suddenly pretending to be champions of reform.
Frankly, their legislative agenda is a patent effort to stop the public demand for a meaningful universal health care system through a single payer. They believe as long as they throw the dog a bone and push some sort of half measure through congress they will be taking the wind out of the sails of the public push for (God forbid) a nonprofit, single payer system. It reminds us of the multi-year attempt of the cigarette industry to wage a "stop smoking" campaign! The present push for fast-track legislation is once again putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop.
So far, all the talk seems to equate a single payer system with "government-run socialized medicine." We know that over the years the for-profit health care industry has spent millions of dollars to demonize "socialized medicine." Therefore, in the eyes of most people a government-run program is a non-starter. It is thought of in terms of long lines, poor service and increased tax burden. This myth is generally embedded in the public mind, despite the fact that all the developed countries have a more or less government-run service with universal coverage, giving much better care at half our per capita cost.
But let's not go down this path at all, which would require a major shift in public perceptions. There is another way, a much better and more efficient way that we can have universal health care, including preventive care, with good quality control, that covers everyone. It will save our economy over $1 trillion each and every year.
This is more than what we have spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars since 9/11. How can this be done? It can simply be accomplished through a nonprofit (I stress: nonprofit), single payer, people-funded, people-managed, private insurance agency. This plan is described in detail in the book Universal Health Care System for the United States of America, accessible at uhc.helpeachother.com.
In that plan, the government buys the policies for the elderly and indigent through Medicare and Medicaid, albeit at less than half the present cost. Other people and/or their employers buy the policies for the private sector. The management is elected by individuals named in the policy, regardless of who has paid for the policy, just like shareholders in a corporation. It is a non-profit, privately managed, single payer insurance corporation that runs like a co-op.
Mr. President, please glance at this plan or have your key people at least look at it. Over 90% of people who have read it are emphatically in favor of it. Many of the details are explained in the book and make the plan even more attractive. More refinements, no doubt, will emerge in the process of legislation and implementation. If instituted, the plan will save 1.7 million jobs, keep our industrial base at home, save our economy over $1 trillion a year, provide good quality universal care, keep us away from for-profit surgical knives, cut our budget deficit each and every year, keep Medicare from going bankrupt and also bring integrity back to our medical research and education.
Mr. President, we agree with the "don't let perfect be the enemy of good" mantra. But in this case, please "don't let tricky greed be the enemy of honest health care reform."
Mr. President, the American people need true health care reform, and you promised us exactly that. The nonprofit, universal health care system outlined in the book goes a long way to deliver on your promises.
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Hmmm... Health Care for All Americans is Simple!
1) Merge Medicare with Medicaide into one single "Income Based" system for elderly and poor citizens.
2) Require insurance companies to provide the same basic coverage for all Non-Medicare/Medicaide citizens, regardless of health status, at affordable rates.
3) Allow insurance companies to profit by offering additional benefits and options to those who qualify and are willing to pay the difference.
As for Funding...
1) Changing from an "Emergency Treatment" to a "Preventive Care" system will save local communities billions, maybe even trillions of taxpayer dollars!
2) Small business will be able to compete globally and hire additional taxpaying employees!
3) Wealthy seniors will pay their fair share!
4) The tremendous burden on future generations will be greatly reduced!
Again, I would like to bring to your attention that the reason our health care system costs double of that per capita as other developed nations, eating up two trillion dollars per year, and providing us with health care that ranks 37th among developed nations is the profit motive absent from all other universal health care systems in the world. The process that you are advocating with profit oriented health insurance industry only exacerbates the present failing system. When you think about it, yes, it is simple: we need to have a non-profit, people-funded, people managed private insurance agency that operates as an independent corporation/co-op. That would be even better than all the other developed nations whose universal health care suffers from the inefficiencies of government-run programs. If we are lucky and have such a private single-payer system instituted, we will save over 1 trillion dollars (1/3 of the federal budget), keep 1.7 million jobs at home, and cover everybody (including preventive care) without copayments. Would you please consider this? For details, refer to the book I've written on Universal Health Care at uhc.helpeachother.com (free to download).
Behzad Mohit, MD
A new study shows that SINGLE-PAYER HEALTHCARE REFORM WOULD BE A MAJOR STIMULUS FOR THE US ECONOMY and would provide:
** 2.6 Million New Jobs,
** $317 Billion in Business Revenue,
** $100 Billion in Wages, and
** $44 Billion New Tax Revenues
The press release is here: http://www.calnurses.org/media-center/press-releases/2009/january/nurses-to-congress-expanding-medicare-could-reverse-job-losses-and-repair-our-broken-healthcare-system-and-safety-net.html
Here’s the study: http://www.calnurses.org/research/pdfs/ihsp_sp_economic_study_2009.pdf
It’s clear that single-payer is the solution, not only in terms of providing quality care for all, but also economically!
WHY ISN’T SINGLE-PAYER ON THE TABLE?
How many jobs would it lose? How much increase in cost per capita? If you want to see single payer health care(?), go no farther than Canada. It's a real mess - and expensive! Anybody with half a brain knows that govt can't run a race, much less a business or enterprise. Yes, it would add millions of new jobs, all govt/taxpayer paid. Where does the money come from to pay for it? Until the lawyers are reined in and cost control for lawsuits is in place, there can be no reform that works.
Loompa, as a Canadian, I will say you're either being ignorant or disingenous. Our health care system works, it's not perfect by any means, no system is, but is a lot better that what you have in the US. Our health care cost approx. $2,000-$3,000 per patient annually compared to the American free for all where big Pharma and Insurance companies make billions off the back of sick people. Your insurance companies decide who should get treatment and what type of treatment they are willing to pay for, exclude payment for preexisting conditions, charge co-pays etc, etc. In Canada, no one is excluded, we are covered from cradle to grave and pay no additional out of pocket cost. In Ontario we do have supplemental private health insurance that covers prescription drugs/eye glasses, physio/occ therapy, dental etc. Our health care system is one of the best in the world and we're are very happy with it. No citizen, from Canada, Europe or elsewhere is willing to give up their health care for one comparable to the US.
Pres. Obama needs to be asked, in public:
--- Mr. President, are you proposing, with "mandates"---compulsory patronage of private insurance businesses---and "public-private" plans, that people ought depend for their, and their families' health care administration, on for-profit insurers that are owners of multi-million dollar holdings in cigarette manufacturing, tobacco pesticides, big coal, big timber, nuclear industries, military weaponry, Halliburton, dioxin-producing chlorine industries, sweat-shop industries, union-busting firms, GE "food" producers, and so forth?
Is your administration proposing that people be compelled to purchase insurance, or have it purchased for them with their tax dollars, from insurers that invest in firms that may be competitors to their own businesses or personal investment holdings?
Are you proposing that people patronize and trust insurers that have significant holdings in Pharmaceutical Firms, with that conflict-of-interest motive to promote their own investment property's drugs over others that may be safer, more effective and cheaper?
If some choose a "non-profit" insurer, is there any assurance that the CEOs and managers do not also have economic links to, and conflicts-of-interest with, private businesses that may be as problematic as those same for-profit investment properties?
Are you saying that the people of the United States, unlike others in the entire industrialized world, and Cuba, are uniquely incapable of taking care of their own health system without the" help" of private, redundant insurance businesses?
I am currently in training as an EMT, and am working toward a career as a PA or NP (taking courses at the University of Vermont, http://www.learn.uvm.edu/hm/). I look forward to reading the book Dr. Mohit refers to, Universal Health Care System for the United States of America. I have always felt there was something morally wrong with a for-profit healthcare system, despite the arguments made by economists that free-market forces would rein in costs. I recently read an editorial in favor of the free market, which stated that insurance companies and patients control healthcare costs by insisting on value, which forces pharmaceutical companies and medical providers to demonstrate the worth of their products and services. Personally, I have not found this to be an effective strategy for lowering my healthcare costs.....
Healthcare is like education, in that we Americans have a fundamental belief that it should be accessible to all, with equal quality for all. Would we want our schools run on a for-profit basis?
I'm also disapponted that NPR.org has not covered this as much as the other
*stupid* media distractions. Health Care is vitally important... I hope you continue
to speak out and I'd love to hear you on NPR.... what you suggest is a great way
to get to single payer... THANK YOU!
I was really disappointed to see this story from AP today:
http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12369452
RIO RANCHO, N.M. — President Barack Obama says if he were building the health care system from scratch, a single-payer system would be the best approach. But he says his goal is to improve the current system.
Responding to a question at a town hall-style meeting in New Mexico today, Obama said he expects a plan from Congress by the August recess that will be a “vast improvement” over the current system.
Obama was asked why a “single payer” plan — where the government makes payments directly to medical care providers — isn’t on the table.
He said the nation has a tradition of employer-based health care using private insurance companies, and that a lot of people are satisfied with it.
Congressional leaders have said a single-payer plan is politically impractical.
==========
I am very disappointed…. Is it Possible to find More “Lot of people” who are *NOT* satisfied until we get Single Payer. THis just seems so common sense to have Single Payer and even Better, the plan that Dr. Mohit recommends here.
It is outrageous that people speaking for single-payer were shut out from congress. We need an obama style campaign to make this change with a majority of the people.
The only way we are going to get single payer health care passed is to use our votes. We are not going to be given a seat at the table by either party because they feel they will be re-elected based on their "differences" on other issues. It is time to take a stand on the issue of single payer health care with our votes.
If you would like to help pressure our elected officials with your vote please join our voting bloc at:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
I hope Obama reads this open letter, although I have to admit, I still can't get over his snarky remark regarding bloggers sometime ago and his blowing off of internet people with regard to the legalization of marijuana. Talk about a major dissing of the American people. I am really getting that feeling with regard to health care reform.
I am frustrated. I'm reading story after story on this. I'm one of those uninsured and mandated insurance will not change that because I can't afford it. I've heard a real good story about the Massachusetts' model on NPR and the guy they interviewed made a little more than I do and he was begin killed with the fines because he couldn't afford the policy. What a joke. And Obama mentions this plan as something good. We might as well have elected Mitt Romney because it's his boneheaded version of health care reform and it isn't working.
The Amerilcan people may want single payer, the American people may need single payer, but the American people with not get single payer because this president and this democratic party controlled congress don't really give a damn what the American people want or need. All they care about is doing the bidding of the banking bandits, the insurance companies and other large corporations, and the wealthy. By the end of this year we will be looking at 15% unemployment, we will have no meaningful healthcare reform (unless you call making everyone buy insurance even if they can't afford it real reform), we will not have the employee free choice act passed and we will see more and more of our manufacturing jobs shipped overseas.
Wise up and rise up, this is OUR country.
We spend twice as much as the next country for care that is ranked 37th in the world. That statement is enough to illustrate that the current "experts" that are running this system are totally discredited. It should be obvious that they have failed, and so should be ignored when the rest of us are trying to fix this mess.
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