Cure for health woes: National Insurance
USA Today, April 16, 2004
Letters
Cure for health woes: National insurance
USA TODAY’s article, ‘Hospital bills spin out of control,’ raises the question: What control? America doesn’t have a health care system; it has a non-system with no public accountability (Cover story, News, Tuesday).
The hospital-funding system is a jobs program for an army of paper pushers. Some hospitals report that they employ more administrative staff than caregivers. Most of these bureaucrats chase the money needed to keep hospitals open. This unstable financing system is unfair to the 43 million Americans with no insurance. Health care bills, often disguised as credit card debt, are the top reason for personal bankruptcy, according to a 2000 study. Still, these bills are paid. It’s the main job of the health bureaucracy: shifting costs to those with insurance.
Our nation suffers a higher rate of death, disability and lost productivity because we fail to provide national health insurance. Every other industrial democracy manages to cover all of its citizens at half the cost with comparable or better quality. Each has accountability within the programs, unlike our byzantine mess of private insurers.
Improved Medicare for all Americans, not just those over age 65, could replace our inefficient system of multiple private insurers. The administrative savings and simplicity of a single-payer system would allow comprehensive coverage for all, with no new spending. National health insurance will save lives and money. It is the right thing to do.
Johnathon S. Ross, MD
Past President
Physicians for a National Health Program
Toledo, Ohio