Published: 9/1/2008 12:04 AM
Every industrialized country, except the U.S., has a system that provides health care for all their citizens. According to the Institute of Medicine, in the U.S 18,000 people die each year from lack of access to health care. That's six times as many deaths per year as those killed Sept. 11, 2001.The U.S. has the most technologically sophisticated medical care anywhere in the world. Yet the World Health Organization ranks us 47th among countries in the quality of care that we deliver to our citizens. We, in the U.S., pay more for health care ($7,219 per capita per year) than people in other countries - and get less.
That's because we have an enormous parasite on the U.S. health care system: The health insurance industry. Health insurance companies gobble up about 31 cents of every health care dollar. They contribute not one aspirin and not one Band-Aid to anyone's medical care. They collect premiums and they control who gets care and who does not. I hold them directly responsible for those 18,000 deaths.
They justify their existence on the bogus claim that they provide "choice" to consumers. In reality, employers choose the health plans for most working Americans. And the self-employed, who buy health care on the open market, find that the plans we choose often reject us because of our pre-existing conditions. Plans sometimes deprive us of the choice that really matters: the choice of doctors.
Administrative overhead for a typical HMO is 15 to 25 percent. Administrative overhead for Medicare is 3 percent. Far from being efficient, private medical insurance constitutes a huge, expensive, unaccountable bureaucracy that stands between us and our doctors.
The solution is to create an American health care system that eliminates the health insurance companies. It would work like an upgraded Medicare for everyone. HR 676 in the U.S. House of Representatives does just that. In Illinois we have a similar bill, HB 311, which would create such a system here in our state.
Insurance companies, the mainstream media, and all of corporate America will attack supporters of any such bill and will distort and dismiss these arguments. Citizens will need to examine the facts for themselves. The full text of each bill is available online. See also www.pnhp.org and www.healthcareil.org for more information. Once you have done so, please call your state representative and ask him or her to support HB 311. Then call your congressman and ask him or her to support HR 676. http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=230824&src=
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