Have a Happy & Healthy New Year! - the Parklander

MEDICINE & HEALTH
THE HEALTH CARE CRISIS,
WHY REFORM IS NEEDED NOW
By Jerry Schwartz
Your company has good health care insurance. You and your family are
covered for any illness from colds to cancer. “What crisis,” you say?
There is a crisis that will affect you, your children and grandchildren
unless this nation makes a commitment to reforming health care. The
dismal facts about the crisis are mounting. Statistics from the National
Coalition on Healthcare are startling:
• In 2005, the annual premiums charged to employers were
approximately $11,000 for a family of four.
• Health care spending represents 11% in Switzerland, 10% in
Germany and Canada and 16% in the United States.
• Although 46 million Americans are uninsured, the US spends
more on health care than any other industrialized nation.
• The average employee contribution to company-provided health
insurance has increased more than 143 percent since 2000.
Average out-of-pocket costs for deductibles, co-payments for
medications, and co-insurance for physician and hospital visits
rose 115 percent during the same period.
• Crippling costs due to catastrophic health problems is a major
cause of personal bankruptcy in the US.
The baby-boomer generation grew up with the expectation that our
employers would provide health benefits to us and our families either at
no cost or at a nominal charge. In 2000 nearly 165 million people were
covered by employer based health coverage. That number is rapidly
declining and today, and the number of uninsured Americans continues to
rise. Yet as stated above, United States spends more on health care than
any other industrialized nation. In fact, we spend 4.3 times as much on
health care as on national defense. It’s hard to believe but true.
The health care cost on industry is already having a disastrous effect on
our economy. Recent news about two of the largest US based
corporations, GM and Ford cite health care costs as a leading cause of
employee layoffs and buyouts. Health care costs General Motors
Corporation $1400 for each car sold.
Out of control health care costs threaten not only large corporations but
small ones as well. Approximately one third of companies in the U.S. did
not offer insurance coverage in 2005. Both small and large firms cannot
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sustain health care inflation. Many firms outsource jobs in order to lower
personnel costs including health care. Unless reform takes place, health
care cost will surpass profits by 2008.
The number of uninsured Americans including children is rising daily.
Health care costs for the uninsured is prohibitive as many put off seeking
care because of lack of coverage and when they do, they seek care in local
hospital emergency rooms. Emergency room coverage is the most
commonly sought form of health care and the most expensive. When
patients lack insurance and funds to pay, the cost of that care is passed on
to the rest of us and, in turn, raises our health care costs.
Only health care reform will start to lower costs and start to address this
crisis. Those against health care reform have frightened the public into
joining them with an easy to understand phrase, socialized medicine.
Socialized medicine evokes fear of government ownership, endless
bureaucracy and inefficiency, long waits for elective surgery and no choice
of doctors.
Reform can not be written by vested interests. The Health Insurance
Industry of America took the threat of health care reform so seriously that
it sponsored the now famous “Harry and Louise” ads featuring a middle
class married couple discussing the bureaucracy of national health care.
The ad ended with the characters stating they would contact their
representatives to oppose such reform. This ad was credited with helping
to end all hopes of reform for the next decade. We don’t need scare tactics
any more. The real scare is the status quo of our existing system.
So far the “free market” has had free reign over health care, but perhaps
the free market and health care cannot coexist and serve the public good.
Universal health care seems to be the only answer to fix a system that is
very quickly bleeding out.
Let’s provide private and public funding that makes sense. The
Japanese system of universal health care where virtually all of the
population is enrolled in some form of insurance is half as costly as ours
and, while isn’t perfect, it gets better results.
If we do not contain costs, Medicare and Medicaid will soon go
bankrupt. The baby boomers are reaching the frequent health care usage
age. Rationing care will be an economic necessity. We have the
opportunity to cherry pick from the best health care practices around the
world and apply it to us. All we need is a common sense approach to fix a
system that serves the common good.