Health Care: The Issue That Needs A Cure

By: Hamilton Ryan August 3, 2008


Stop! Take a minute to think about what it would be like to not have health insurance. Are you thinking? Imagine that you have a loved one who has recently become very ill. The symptoms are as follows: shaking chills, shortness of breath, chest pain, headaches/muscle aches, oh and a fever that ranges up to 102. Obviously there is some urgency in getting this loved one to a doctor. Now imagine not having insurance in this situation, and imagine that you are a struggling family living in a nation that has a struggling economy (shouldn’t be too hard to imagine that). You now have two options: take the loved one any way and risk sinking into debt if you can even pay the bill at all, or don’t take the loved one and see what time does for the situation. By the way, the symptoms are those that represent Pneumonia, which means that if you let it just sit unattended there is a high chance of death.

Scared yet? How about sick? Now that you have thought through this scenario and realize the serious dangers of not having health insurance I feel that it is my duty to tell you, the reader, that you live in a nation where 47 million American people, which includes 9 million children, live without health insurance. Eighty percent of these people live in working families. The number of uninsured is very likely to increase over the next few years due to the struggling economy, and high gas prices. There needs to be serious action taken to get these citizens insurance. The action that I am speaking of is universal health care.

There are a lot of arguments that are out there about this process. Let me go through just a few and give you my opinion. The number one argument that I hear is that the money that it takes to fund universal health care comes directly out of the American taxpayer’s pocket. My question for the taxpayer is this, “Would you rather your tax dollars that come out of your pocket go to a war that we are constantly taking lives in, or would you rather your money go toward fighting the war against death, disease, and illness here at home?” You can either have your money go toward death and destruction, or you could let it go toward life, and the preservation there of. According to homepagedaily.com, “The Iraq War has so far cost U.S. taxpayers $526 billion in direct costs and about $1.3 trillion to the economy.” Imagine what that amount of money could do for health care in the United States. Being an Obama supporter I decided to take a look at his plan.

Obama has a three part plan for health care in America. “(1) Providing affordable, comprehensive and portable health coverage for every American; (2) Modernizing the U.S. health care system to contain spiraling health care costs and improve the quality of patient care; and (3) Promoting prevention and strengthening public health, to prevent disease and protect against natural and man-made disasters.” In fact, under the Obama plan the typical family will save up to $2,500 a year. They will do this through:


• Health IT investment, which will reduce unnecessary spending in the system that results from preventable errors and inefficient paper billing systems;


• Improving prevention and management of chronic conditions;


• Increasing insurance industry competition and reducing underwriting costs and profits, which will reduce insurance overhead;


• Providing reinsurance for catastrophic coverage, which will reduce insurance premiums; and


• Making health insurance universal, which will reduce spending on uncompensated care.


The plan will also insure every American citizen. How? Well first of all it is important to realize that this plan will build upon and improve our current health insurance system. It will also leave Medicare intact for older and disabled American citizens. Americans can keep their current coverage if they choose to do so, and they will see their health care improve, and their costs go down. “Specifically, the Obama plan will: (1) establish a new public insurance program, available to Americans who neither qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP nor have access to insurance through their employers, as well as to small businesses that want to offer insurance to their employees; (2) create a National Health Insurance Exchange to help Americans and businesses that want to purchase private health insurance directly; (3) require all employers to contribute towards health coverage for their employees or towards the cost of the public plan ; (4) mandate all children have health care coverage; (5) expand eligibility for the Medicaid and SCHIP programs; and (6) allow flexibility for state health reform plans.”

This leads me to my next argument against universal health care. Many people feel that the quality of care will decrease, and that doctors will be less motivated to work. For my answer I turn to the countries that have universal health care already. First, let us look at the current ranking of the United States health care with other countries.


• The United States rank 23rd in the world in infant mortality, which is down from 12th in 1960, and 21st in 1990.


• The United States rank 20th in life expectancy for women, which is down from 1st in 1945 and 13th in 1960.


• The United States rank 21st in life expectancy for men, which is down from 1st in 1945 and 17th in 1960.


• The United States rank between 50th and 100th in immunizations depending on the immunization. Overall, however, the USA is 67th, which is directly behind Botswana.


The truth is, that for some nations there are problems with the universal health care system, but there are always problems with every system. The United Kingdom currently looks as though it has a health care crisis on its hands. Britain “ranks 17th out of 29 European countries on a range of healthcare benchmarks, including quality of service, length of wait times, and patient information.” The fact is, however, that the United States has lengthy waits and sometimes low quality of service itself. It wasn’t but a few weeks ago that Brooklyn, New York had a woman die in a psychiatric emergency room, and no one noticed until it was too late. “For 20 minutes, she writhed and twisted between two chairs under the watchful eye of a security camera whose footage would later be broadcast across the country, spurring a public outcry. Two security guards and two other staff members passed through the room and glanced at the 49-year-old woman, without bothering to check her vital signs or help her up. The sight of patients like Green, wearing a urine-stained hospital gown and lying face down on the floor, was hardly uncommon in the psychiatric emergency room of Kings County Hospital Center. Neither was the fact that by the time she collapsed, she had been waiting almost 24 hours for a bed. At that moment Green was in line with 32 other patients, some of whom had been waiting just as long, if not longer.”

Another story is told like this, “A woman who lay bleeding on the emergency room floor of a troubled inner-city hospital died after 911 dispatchers refused to contact paramedics or an ambulance to take her to another facility, newly released tapes of the emergency calls reveal. Edith Isabel Rodriguez, 43, died of a perforated bowel on May 9 at Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Hospital. Her death was ruled accidental by the Los Angeles County coroner’s office. Relatives said Rodriguez was bleeding from the mouth and writhing in pain for 45 minutes while she was at a hospital waiting area. Experts have said she could have survived had she been treated early enough.” Does that sound like a good health care system?

That being asked, the United States of America faces a serious threat today if we cannot solve our health care crisis. Senator Obama has made the statement that we live in a time when it is more risky for us not to change, and he is right.


The rest of Obama’s plan includes:


Guaranteed eligibility. No American will be turned away FROM ANY INSURANCE PLAN because of illness or pre-existing conditions.

Comprehensive benefits. The benefit package will be similar to that offered through the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), the program through which Members of Congress get their own health care. The new public plan will include coverage of all essential medical services, including preventive, maternity and mental health care. Coverage will include disease management programs, self management training and care coordination for appropriate individuals.


Affordable premiums, co-pays and deductibles. Participants will be charged fair premiums and minimal co-pays for deductibles for preventive services.


Subsidies. Individuals and families who do not qualify for Medicaid or SCHIP but still need assistance will receive income-related federal subsidies to keep health insurance premiums affordable. They can use the subsidy to buy into the new public plan or purchase a private health care plan.


Simplifying paperwork and reining in health costs. The plan will simplify paperwork for providers and will increase savings to the system overall.


Easy enrollment. The new public plan will be simple to enroll in and provide ready access to coverage.


Portability and choice. Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (see below) will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.


Quality and efficiency. Participating hospitals and providers that participate in the new public plan will be required to collect and report data to ensure that standards for health care quality, health information technology and administration are being met.


In short, my fellow American citizens, we are living in a time that needs change. I realize that change is difficult, and that at times it can be scary, but, to me, it is scarier to think about a future where we, as a nation, continued using the same failed policies, and our children suffered for it. That is scary! The statistics that I gave earlier about universal health care show that the United States, using the same policies, dropped tremendously in quality care among other nations around the world. We cannot allow this to occur. We need a change. All of the information on Senator Obama’s Health Care Plan was provided by his site that lists his actual plan. I will provide the address below as always, and I will also provide the addresses for the rest of the information that I used. I would like to thank the individual who posted a question about health care on my site. I love to answer all of my readers’ questions to the best of my ability. It also helps to keep me on my toes. So thank you, whoever you are. I encourage everyone to read Senator Barack Obama’s health care plan. It is only about 15 pages, it is very in depth, and it is surely worth the time that it takes to read it.



Websites Used:

Obama’s Site:
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/healthcare/

Obama’s Health Care Plan (.pdf file):
http://www.barackobama.com/issues/pdf/HealthCareFullPlan.pdf

Pneumonia Symptoms:
http://www.medicinenet.com/pneumonia/article.htm#3whatare

More Improved Healthcare Facilites, UK:
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/116993.php

Cost of Iraq War for U.S. Taxpayers:
http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article4661-us-taxpayers-count-cost-of-iraq-war.aspx

Universal Health Care Info:
http://cthealth.server101.com/the_case_for_universal_health_care_in_the_united_states.htm

Los Angeles Woman Dies In Emergency Room:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19207050/

New York Woman Dies In Emergency Room:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/145870