The recent passage by the Senate of the Patients Bill of Rights and the
pending debate in the House of Representatives once again highlights the
major problems with the current costly and failing corporate profit driven
plan that the majority of Americans have been brainwashed into believing is
the 'best' system by insurance companies.
While Senators McCain, Edwards and Kennedy should be applauded for the
tremendous job they have done in crafting a bipartisan bill that will
provide strong patient protections and curb insurance company abuses, it is
just the first of many steps that should be taken to ensure all Americans
receive quality health care.
Perhaps the biggest problem with the current Patients Bill of Rights is
that it does nothing to address the issue of the uninsured. Indeed, it is a
national disgrace that 42 million Americans do not have health insurance.
Who are the uninsured?
They are 17.5 percent of our non-elderly population. A shameful 25 percent
are children. The majority - 83 percent - are in working families.
The consequences of our nation's significant uninsured population are
devastating. The uninsured are significantly more likely to delay or
forego needed care. The uninsured are less likely to receive preventive
care. Delaying or not receiving treatment can lead to more serious
illness and avoidable health problems. This in turn results in unnecessary
and costly hospitalizations.
In 1999, for the first time in a decade we saw a slight decrease in the
uninsured. But we still have so far to go. Health care should be a
fundamental right, and neither the government nor the private sector is
doing enough to secure that right for everyone.
The Senate recently passed and the House is currently debating a patients'
rights bill that supporters hope will compensate for some of the worst
abuses of the managed health care system.
The current system evolved after the failure of privatized national health
care legislation proposed by former President Clinton during his first
term. Dozens of insurance companies now provide a patchwork of restrictive
coverage plans while more than 40 million Americans have no coverage at
all.
The U.S. health care system is by far the most expensive and flawed in the
industrialized world. Despite national pride in the high quality of
American medical care, the Institute of Medicine recently found that nearly
100,000 patients die in hospitals annually due to physician error.
And perhaps the greatest outrage is the threat of President Bush to veto
the Patients Bill of Rights because it purportedly benefits "trial
attorneys". Indeed, it illustrates how Bush is antithetical to the very
constitutional system our nation was founded upon. For if negligence is an
issue with these 100,000 deaths, then it is up to a jury to decide, based
upon the evidence, what the damages should be. And by placing 'caps' on a
person's life and livelihood, it merely demonstrates Bush's allegiance to
the profit driven insurance industry that regards human life as statistical
flowcharts.
In calling for reform, consumer groups, some health care providers, and a
small band in Congress, have proposed single-payer, universal health
coverage as an antidote to the current corporate, profit-driven model.
One of the groups which have long advocated a universal system is
Physicians for a National Health Program or PNHP.
Recently journalist Melinda Tuhus spoke with PNHP's coordinator, Dr.
Quentin Young, who has practiced medicine in Chicago for five decades and
has been in the forefront of the struggle for health care reform. He talks
about the movement for universal care and the prospects for change to
substantively address America's health care crisis.
"Physicians for a National Health Program was founded in 1988, when 100
physicians from across the country signed a declaration calling in brief,
for a national health insurance plan, single-payer plan, best understood as
Medicare for everybody, but without the encumbrances that Medicare is
burdened with such as no co-pays, no deductibles, no caps, no first-day
hospital charges, comprehensive pharmacy coverage, parity for mental health
and long-term care," explains Dr. Young.
"Basically, a modern, social justice kind of health care system. I would
say our greatest achievement in little over a decade is the high quality
scientific studies that make the case for single-payer national health
insurance and make the case against the for-profit, corporate take-over of
our health system, which tragically coincided with that same dozen years,"
he continues.
Tuhus: When you say, "studies make the case," are you referring to how your
studies have shown that it would actually save money to have this kind of
universal system?
Dr. Quentin Young: Well, we make the case in every way -- first and
foremost economically, since the cost of the health system is on the top of
most people's agendas -- the politicians, the business community and
indeed, the public as patients.
So that's a very ready-made case, not only with the data in our own
country, but from the experiences of the 18 industrial, democratic
countries of the world, each of whom, over the years, has chosen to take
national responsibility for health care of their people.
They all do it in a comprehensive way, covering everybody for typically
half or even less than half of what we spend per capita for our faulty
system. But beyond the fiscal (issues), we make the case for better quality
and a reversal of the trends toward danger and un-safety that is being
carefully chronicled most recently by the Institute of Medicine.
The Institute found nearly a 100,000 people perish in hospitals from
errors, and make the case for preventive medicine, for preserving
patient-doctor relationships and access to specialty care, emergency room
care and so on -- data unequivocally compelling to show that the public is
being ripped off.
Tuhus: What stands in the way of that, since the system is so far from
perfect now?
Dr. Quentin Young: Well, we spend a lot of time both facing opposition and
trying to understand them. It turns out at the top of the list are
ideologies -- false ideology.
That is to say, the American people have been brainwashed against
government programs and taxes, both of which are components of the proposal
we make.
It's ironic, the standard joke we make which is bitter humor -- namely, the
little old lady who passionately begged her doctor, "Don't let the
government get their hands on my Medicare!" unaware that Medicare is a
government program, a big government program, a very successful program,
and yet, it's under attack by reactionary forces who want to privatize it,
who want to force people into HMOs which have already proven their
dysfunction and counterproductivity.
This Patient's Bill of Rights is an attempt to address that. As far as
we're concerned, it's desirable to give people protection, but any illusion
that that would solve the problems of our health care system is just that
-- a sad illusion.
Tuhus: Do you see any hope for your noble cause, with the physicians who
are part of your organization, getting us from where we are to anything
resembling a more just system that you are talking about?
Dr. Quentin Young: I really do. My optimism relies on two or three things.
One, first and foremost, the system we have, as costly as it is, is
failing. I mean, literally failing.
Since we started talking, several hundred more Americans have had bad
experiences with the system. Most of us - to continue the answer to your
question of prospects -- have come to believe that it will be one, two or
three states that enact (a universal health care system), and have some
experience with it, before it becomes national policy. It turns out, that
mechanism, that sequence is very typical for major reforms like women's
suffrage -- it was enacted in a number of states before it became federally
constituted.
Workman's compensation, unemployment insurance and even Social Security
were first tried in the states. So I think it's quite likely that will be
the sequence here. What I'm saying is that it's happening in that direction
faster than we optimists expected.
Contact Physicians for a National Health Program by calling (312) 782-6006
or visit their Web site at http://www.pnhp.org.
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