Last February, Congressman John Conyers (D-MI) introduced H.R. 676, the United States National Health Insurance Act. This bill, which already has 50 co-sopnsors, would make decent health care and medical coverage, including mental health care, available to all Americans.Despite the pronouncements by some, universal health care coverage is not a right. Nobody has the right to have his or her bills paid by someone else. Universal health care coverage is, however, a need.
The current system (if it can be called a system) is a polyglot mix of public, private and no coverage at all. Nearly 50 million Americans have no coverage, and that number is growing daily. Private coverage is horribly inefficient, with administrative expenses running as high as 15% of total costs in some cases. By contrast, even with all its problems, Medicare is the most efficient system ever invented for providing and paying for health care.
In order to move forward as a society, in order to continue to reduce poverty, provide good jobs, expand our economy, and raise the general standard of living, we need to make certain that all the members of society are taken care of. The recent events in Louisiana and Mississippi, where thousands of poor people were, quite literally, left to die, could end up costing the rest of us $200 billion. If instead of ignoring the needs of poor people, we had spent a few million dollars to upgrade the levees, we wouldn't be in this mess - and neither would they.
Many tragedies afflict America's poor people every day, from large tragedies like natural disasters to small tragedies like the middle-aged women admitted to the emergency ward because of something that could have been fixed early with proper care. It's time we applied the adage "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." Implementing universal health care coverage will not cost money, it will save money. Every day, our public hospitals spend huge sums on emergency care for people who can't afford health care coverage. Getting primary and preventive coverage for these people will keep them out of the emergency ward.
Additionally, universal health care coverage means that businesses no longer need to face the dilemma of spending all their profits covering their employees or forcing those employees to pay for their own coverage - and having to raise their salaries to make it possible. For employees, it means they can choose their own doctors, and switch jobs without losing coverage.
For poor people, universal health care coverage will mean longer, healthier, happier, more productive lives. For the middle class it will mean relief from the fear of losing coverage. For the rich, it will mean less government spending.
This is better than a win-win situation, it is a win-win-win-win-win situation.
Copyright 2005, Dan Jacoby
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