National Health Care: Making a Trip to Antarctica Possible

At dinner last night, my parents announced they are going to take a trip to Antarctica. Not your usual vacation destination, but it's been done. The twist is that my parents are 80 and 78 respectively, not an age at which most people choose to hike through Patagonia or look for penguins in the wild. And -- take that, teabaggers! -- my parents have spent most of their lives availing themselves of government-run health plans. Clearly, there were no insidious plans by the government to kill off my daughter's granny.

From the mid-1950s until 1979, when he retired, my dad was active duty military. My parents, and eventually their three kids, received health care through the U.S. government at military-run hospitals and clinics around the world. We were a fairly healthy family so there were no ongoing medical crises that I recall. And, if memory serves, military hospitals don't stand out in the interior design category. But they got the job done. I spent three days at Fort Meade with a concussion, got allergy shots at Wiesbaden Hospital in Germany, saw specialists when I needed them and internists when I didn't.

Once I graduated from college, I was thrown into the world of health insurance plans and choosing doctors and co-pays and waiting interminable lengths of time to see specialists. Like most twenty-somethings, it took a while to figure out the complex system. My parents, however, never had to worry. Once my dad retired, they were entitled to remain on CHAMPUS (the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Uniformed Services), a federally-funded health program. It saw my dad through two heart attacks and a bypass surgery. It kept my mom healthy through fibromyalgia and an ulcer. And, despite the rainbow of pills that they somehow manage to swallow in the course of 24 hours, they have not had to dip into savings or sell their house to fund them.

CHAMPUS has gotten a spiffy new name -- TRICARE -- along with more complex language to describe it, but it is essentially the medical care that strikes fear in the hearts of all those people who worship Congressman Joe Wilson. Some 9.4 million people are currently enrolled, many of them active duty military personnel and their families. I don't know enough to argue that it's the best possible care, but I can point to my two parents who still ride their tandem bike every day and swim every day and are healthy enough to plan a January trip to Antarctica. I can vouch for the fact that no one at any of the military clinics they visit has suggested that they have lived long enough and are taking up valuable space that could be better used by younger folks.

Congress has got to get the health care bill right to help the largest possible number of Americans while correcting a health care system that is bloated, difficult to navigate and a nightmare for those who switch jobs or are without them. It isn't true that something is better than nothing. But it is also possible to create a national health care system that would provide a health safety net for all of us, that would encourage healthy behaviors, that would make it possible to become critically ill without the added fear of losing your home or savings. And it is possible to keep people alive and healthy so they can choose to travel to Antarctica to see the penguins when they are into their eighth decade of life.

 

Comments

[Tim303]

The life expectancy of the Brits now exceeds ours.

[vippy]

I compared Tri-Care with what we had in Europe and it is same. Now everyone should have coverage like it. Why some people are against it I can't explain, other than they love to shoot themselves in the foot. All those needless deaths, all those who got denied coverage after having paid, should be enough to set a precedent. Must be the education level of this country, there is no other explanation.
Who in their right mind needs an interpreter like Rush or Drudge or Glenn Beck, who are really only
hate mongers and get paid well to spread the word of the corporations. Just look what they rake in
on salaries, that alone should be a deterrent.

[Thermodynamics]

She is right and TRICARE is great.

But it is sometimes abused by suppliers. You know, the extra unneeded test scam. TRICARE is so predictable , and so inclusive, and so good at paying, that private suppliers of heath services take advantage, they milk it.

I know of this case personally: almost 30 ultrasounds for a normal pregnancy, and they were not cheap.

To me this is an argument for single-payer, or something close. If the government is going to get involved, then it needs to get in deep enough to regulate things, not just feed the beast.

[tm68]

I believe that case is not a common one unless the case was what we called "champused out"- or, using a civilian doctor that accepts Tricare. Yes, I can see those doctors abusing the system- but that's a doctor problem- not a patient problem! And Tricare should have questioned it- do you know if they did? And if they did, shame on the doctor for scamming the insurance company into paying for that many.

I have had 2 children in a military hospital under Tricare and I was given only 2 for each pregnancy.

[Beca]

It can't be any worse than what we have now with the convoluted and fractioned private insurance.
Besides, there are several existing models in other countries that can be adopted to here and the size of our population. For instancde, in Canada, the health money is allocated to each state's health dept, handles the remittances to providers and medical personnel. The medical personnel and hospitals are not employees of the state, they are private entities that submit their bills for payment to one payor--the state, instead of ten or twenty they have to do now.
Sure it will take a short time to adjust, but data shows that it does not take must time to create the sytems. We just have to want it and fight for it first!

[Beca]

tamar, thank you for your wonderful article! I wonder if you could please send it to every member of Congress--­especially those who are in the Democratic Party, as well as our President, Vice President, and all media outlets. Perhaps it would give them a bit of enlightment and perhaps they might even become interested in finding out what Universal Health care really is rather than just going by the deceptive lies of the right extremists. Your article was great because it was easy to follow--perhaps even for those low-infomr­ation/inte­lligent people!

[Tamar Abrams - Huffpost Blogger]

Thanks, Beca. I saw the teabagging folks who marched in Washington last weekend and their messages are horribly deceptive but also really easy to remember, catchy even. Those of us who favor health care reform have to develop good messages that are clear and honest and memorable. Until we do, we're going to be chasing after the lies from the other side.

[Keo]

You can argue, intelligently, that just because something works well for 9 million people doesn't mean that it will work well for 200 million.
But you can't argue intelligently that because something works well for 9 million people, it won't work for 200 million.
The truth is, TriCare proves that a single-payer, government run program CAN work.

I have treated patients covered under TriCare and Medicare. There are some problems with both. But they do work as a means of providing people with coverage for their medical care. Neither system pays doctors very well and neither covers the complementary, alternative, and preventive services that people really do need. But TriCare and MediCare provide a template for a viable, single-payer system which, with some tweaking here and there, could be exactly what this country needs.
As for France and Germany, those countries don't just have fewer people, they have proportionally fewer sick people. And no TV commercials for prilosec and paxil. Or so many people eating 2 out of every 3 meals at Burger King. Or people driving 1/2 mile to their local convenience store for a diet soda.
You won't find nearly as many people isolated, without a sense of community. And you'll find hardly anyone "stressed out" and losing sleep (things which help to make us sick) because of their medical bills.

[Beca]

All good points Keo, thanks!

[ruforeeeal]

it may work well now with 9.4 million subscribers. add 290,000,000 more, we'll how great it is then.

[oldngrumpy]

I think if we added the populations of France, Italy, Germany, - - - - well, you get the idea.