Health advocates push for ‘single-payer’ universal health care
Rita Villadiego, Dec 01, 2004 NEWARK, N.J. — A few months ago, Filipino American Rico Genaro, 42, who earns a minimum wage, as a staff of a video shop in New York City, got the flu and couldn’t work for a week.
He went to a doctor and spent over $350 for check-up and medication.
“I feel so worried without health insurance. If I have a serious illness, I don’t know how to survive,” said Genaro who was interviewed in a party in Jersey City. Genaro is one of millions of Americans who bear the brunt of the government’s lack of health-insurace policy.
Health advocates and policy makers have agreed to continue their efforts to push for universal health care amid concerns that escalating medical costs and prescription have endangered the lives of patients.
Speaking to advocacy groups, Dr. Charles Granatir of the Physicians for a National Health Program lamented that 18,000 deaths each year in the U.S. are due to lack of health insurance. With 45 million uninsured Americans or about a million uninsured in New Jersey, this has dangerous implications to patients. “The rise of the uninsured is not the cause of the healthcare crisis, it is the result,” said Granatir.
During the forum, a video was shown highlighting the suffering of Roslyn Schwartz of Fort Lee, N.J. who died of breast cancer in 2000 without health insurance. Faced with the bitter reality of dying without health care, she walked from Fort Lee to Trenton to dramatize her protest on the plight of the uninsured.
The effect is compounded by skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs that are usually tough for people who are under 65 years old, and not covered by Medicare, or other insurance, advocates say. Granatir is backing the passage of the United States National Health Insurance Act of H.R. 676, authored by Rep. John Conyers (D, MI), which establishes an American single-payer health care system.
The bill would create a publicly financed, privately delivered health care program that uses the already existing Medicare program by expanding and improving to all U.S. residents, and all residents living in U.S. territories. The goal of the legislation is to ensure that all Americans, guaranteed by law, will have access to the highest quality and most-cost-effective health care services regardless of employment, income, or health status.
The single-payer health care proposed by the Physicians for National Health Program emphasizes that health insurance will be privately delivered by practitioners and is therefore privately-run and not state-controlled. Granatir said unlike in Canada and other developed countries in Europe, the U.S. has no health policy. He said health care costs account for 15 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product.
The U.S health care cost is expected to shoot up to $1.8 trillion this year. The high cost is due mainly to soaring administrative and overhead costs of of health care providers and physicians who spend some $294.3 billion each year on administrative cost alone. Under the proposed single-payer health care system, everybody will receive a ticket for health care to receive needed comprehensive treatment. The blue-print health package underscores the need to make health care a right and not a privilege for all Americans.
As many people lost jobs or became under-employed in the wake of weak economy, more people are getting anxious of the increasing premiums on health insurance. Trish Comstock, 65, works for about two hours a week as a part-time teacher at Montclair State University.
She slipped down while walking in Manhattan three years ago and broke her hips. Since she has a low income, she was covered by Medicaid but paid almost $3,000 out of her pocket to pay her hospital bills. “When you are working part-time, you can’t use all your money to pay for health costs and pay other bills,” said Comstock. She is now getting Medicare insurance and her premium has increased from $66 to $78 per month.
Comstock’s feeling reflects the growing frustrations on health care. She is not alone as she struggles to pay increasing health care costs. Some people have greater worries as a Medicare program that pays health insurance premiums, known as Qualifying Individual or QI-1, for the poorest of the poor expired Saturday, forcing 156,000 Americans to pay for their own premiums.
“They are exploiting people who can least afford it,” Comstock said. With the graying of the baby boomers, health care providers are seen to increase costs by 20 percent as caring for the sickly old people requires more medication and hospital care, an official of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association said in a previous interview.
While millions suffer without health insurance, advocates who attended the forum said high cost of health insurance and expensive prescriptions fill the coffers of most health companies. Granatir said most drug companies earned 18.5 profit margins in 2001 as compared to 3.3 percent profit margins of Top Fortune 500 companies. He said 22 percent to 35 percent of health care dollar costs go to overhead and profits of most health care companies.
But Senator Joe Vitale of District 19, N.J. said the government’s family health care program has provided insurance to millions of families or one-third of total children in N.J. The government is working to provide health insurace to working adults and not only children. The government also reimbursed hospitals of $583 million for charity care for the poor this year as compared to $383 million last year.
“We have to increase insurance eligibility to parents,” Vitale said. Legislators agreed that it would be a long way and struggle for Americans to have a meaningful health care reform. Since universal health care is generally backed by Democrats in Congress, it would be difficult to pass this law since the Republicans are in power, said Mada Liebman, senior advisor and staff N.J. Senator Jon Corzine. Corzine authored a resolution urging Congress to enact an equal access to comprehensive health call to all Americans by the year 2005.
“We have to fight to turn the situation around. We could not get health care reform in the last four years,” said Lawrence Hamm, chairman of the People’s Organization for Progress.