According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in terms of health system performance and 72nd in overall population health. Yet all of these stats belong to a country that spends more per person on health care than any other country. How can that be? Where is the money going?
From reading the progressive blogosphere, it would seem that much of the problem lies with the private for-profit insurance model. The model uses publicly traded stock on Wall Street so that when your surgery is denied by the administrator working for the insurance company, not only does the insurance company’s stock value increase, making the CEO and the board a profit, but that administrator gets a bonus.
During congressional testimony, one insurance administrator told her story, how she denied surgery to a person in need to save the company money. The person who needed the surgery eventually died, while the administrator was promoted. She went on to gain a strong reputation within the company as someone who could be “counted on.”
According to Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the insurance industry spends 400 billion dollars a year in administrative costs used to stall payments, deny coverage, cancel coverage, and research new, clever ways to do all of the above. At the same time, doctor’s offices and hospitals are devoting more time, energy, and money into dealing with all the different policies for each insurance company and the constant denials of service, when many would probably just like to practice medicine again.
It seems the greed of big business has created a system that does what it can to save money, so that stock values continue to rise, with little worry of the real world effect its policies have on families. Should we be mad at this? How can we be? After all, making large profits is the goal of big business. They should try to earn as much money for their stockholders as possible, right? But in capitalism, the government also has a role that it has refused to play for some time.
In capitalism, it’s the government’s job to be the referee. Regulating the industry from unfair abuse is one role it is required to play. For example, it is abusive for the insurance company to grant you insurance and accept your payments and than cancel your coverage when you attempt to use it.
Capitalism also requires competition so companies can fight it out for customers by offering better and better service. Yet our government, instead of preventing monopolies, as is its job in a capitalist system, have been promoting monopolies in all areas of business from telephone service to Wall Street banks to health insurance companies. When monopolies control an industry, the cost for the patient goes up and service goes down.
President Obama has recognized the need to address the failures of the government to play its proper role in the capitalist system, and he seems to want to change this by passing a health care reform bill that will address problems like the 47 million people in the country without insurance and the abusive way the insurance industry denies coverage in order to make a profit. He said in his primetime press conference on July 22, 2009, that right now we spend more money on health care than any nation on earth, around $6000 per person, and if he can get that down to $3000 per person, than he would be satisfied. The president’s real goal is to create a government-run public option that would compete with private companies. In theory, the competition would force the private for-profit companies to treat their patients with more honesty and fairness.
The question is: Will the bill that is being crafted in the halls of Congress really make a difference? For years and even decades, special interests and big business have been able to craft most legislation while the average American seems to be left out of the discussion. Lobbying in Washington is at its peak these days. According to the website OpenSecrets.org, in 2008, 3.28 billion dollars was spent lobbying politicians, while there were 14,840 actual lobbyists. And when it comes to this health care debate, the health care industry, who would love to keep the status quo, has spent 1.4 million dollars a day lobbying Washington, trying to get their message heard.
Also, most of our elected representatives in Congress happen to be millionaires. How can millionaires who have never felt the health care problems of the low and middle class be expected to understand the health care problems of the low and middle class?
In the face of all this, how is our voice going to be heard?
The dynamic of the debate at first seemed to be between the two major parties, Democratic and Republican. But it seems the Republicans do not want to be part of the type of real reform that the Democratic Party is pushing for. For example, I think there is a strong consensus that the American public pays too much for medication, yet when the pharmaceutical industry agreed to be part of reform by making a commitment to cut their profits by 80 billion dollars over a ten-year period, to help the consumer, the Republican Party leader John Boehner publicly criticized the industry for cow-towing to the Democratic Party.
Now the major debate to watch seems to be within the Democratic Party, between two coalitions, the Blue Dogs, who act more moderate and who fight for more corporate-backed laws, and the Progressives, who are more to the left and who, in my opinion, fight for middle-class masses.
And while you might not be that hopeful watching corporate news, one progressive website believes the public option will pass. OpenLeft’s current count is that 51 senators and 235 representatives have gone on record in support of a public option, and Nancy Pelosi is also on record saying any bill without a public option will not pass the House. Officially, the Senate needs 51 votes and the House needs 218 votes to pass legislation.
But the question still remains: If it does, how strong of a public option will actually pass? While Obama and the Democratic Party hold back any details of the reform they want, the myths and the misinformation in the media and town hall meetings continue to grow. Phrases like “socialized health care” and “death panels” are misused to scare the country. Corporate media repeats these less-than-honest terms and, before you know it, most of the nation is participating in a dishonest debate. I recently heard a Canadian doctor on WBAI talk about how appalled he was at the level of debate we are having in this country.
The result of this bill, whatever that may be, will have a profound effect on the political future of the Democratic Party. Check out Mike Lux of OpenLeft and his take on how this health care bill will affect the future of the Democratic Party:
“The first thing to understand in all this is the consequences for the Democrats, for the next generation, and probably longer if they pass some convoluted, complicated, unworkable compromise that doesn't change the abusive patterns in the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and doesn't begin to control health care costs. If the Democrats twist up this bill to make insurance companies and their Republican allies happy, it is end-of-story for this generation of Democrats. Our party will not recover from screwing up health care.”
President Obama also “upped the stakes” when he gave a speech to a joint session of Congress (the type of speech reserved for the most serious occassions) to continue his push to convince them to pass meaningful reform. So even though corporate media continues to make the argument that “the public option is dead,” the actions of those in government say otherwise.
As John Kerry said in a debate with George W. Bush during a 2004 presidential debate, “Just because Mr. Bush said it, does not make it true.”
If you would like to reply to Mr. August's remarks about health care, email us at comments@vigilantmonkey.com.
Ian August is author of the Nations of Rumi. He has a B.A. in Political Science and is very interested in government issues and actions. In his spare time, he is trying to reach enlightenment.