Health Care Remains a Top Issue

We spend more than all other countries on health care but on average we achieve poorer health outcomes. About 15% (45 million) of our fellow citizens are uninsured, but in all other developed countries the percentage is zero or close to zero. Here, health care is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy; in other countries it is unthinkable.

It Touches Us All – Not Just the Poor and Sick

If you are a small employer or work for one, you know that coverage has become unaffordable. If you’re an entrepreneur, the cost of health care is giving you second thoughts about even starting up a new venture. Large employers are cutting back too. “Job lock” – not being able to change jobs or retire a few years early – is a reality for millions. The percentage of companies providing retiree coverage has been cut in half over the last 15 years. And if you have taken early retirement, about one-third of you can’t buy health insurance for yourself, even if you have the money.

Failed “Reforms”

Republican health policy is to “put consumers in charge of their health care dollars and decisions." They want health care to work like a competitive market, like buying a TV. A Nobel-prize winner showed that this was folly almost 50 years ago, yet the rhetoric persists. Most of us just don’t want to be responsible for figuring out why our child has a fever or what surgery or medicine we need. We want a doctor we trust who has time for us. Yet, the Administration touts a tax break – Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) that are used by the 1% or 2% that have enough money to save after paying their health care premiums – as a “reform.”

Call to Action

Most of us are healthy or insured or both, but even so, about 80% to 90% of adults of both political parties think that our health care system needs fundamental change or more. In other words, there’s a huge consensus that the “free market” does not work in health care, whether in achieving the social objective of access to quality, affordable health care for all, or when it comes to ourselves. We are tired of the escalating costs, the complexity and paperwork and the very real risk of losing coverage. There is no excuse for leaving millions without coverage or for letting what the rest of us are fortunate enough to have to slip away. If we want to lead the rest of the world economically and morally, we need much more than a Katrina response and a SCHIP veto.

There are many promising proposals on the table ranging from affordable universal coverage arrangements to simplified non-profit single-payer systems as are successful in advanced nations globally. None of these truly comprehensive solutions can become a reality until you have representation in Washington that fights for good public policy, instead of protecting corporate profits.