Doctor to talk about health care for all Ohioans proposal
By Kevin Lamb
Dayton Daily News
Dr. Johnathon Ross has worked for universal, government-paid health insurance since he worked for an HMO 20 years ago.
“I learned that all insurance companies want to insure pig iron, under water, against fire,” the Toledo internist said. “In health insurance, that means their whole idea is to avoid taking care of sick people.”
The result is a situation the Single-Payer Action Network of Ohio hopes to correct. Nearly 1 in 6 Americans is uninsured — 45.8 million including 1.3 million Ohioans — generally those with poorer health or lower income who need coverage the most.
Ross will talk about SPAN Ohio’s proposed Health Care for All Ohioans Act at 7 p.m. Monday at a free public forum at Montgomery County Democratic Party headquarters, 131 S. Wilkinson St.
The bill is unlikely to pass either house in Ohio’s legislature, so supporters hope to collect enough signatures by December to force a referendum on the November 2006 ballot.
“About nine out of every 10 people I ask are signing our petition,” said Sheila Conard, the Oakwood grandmother who immigrated from England nearly 50 years ago and chairs SPAN’s Greater Miami Valley chapter.
The bill would create a publicly administered health care fund to pay all the state’s medical bills, including dental, vision, mental health and prescriptions.
Doctors and other providers would remain private enterprises, and patients could choose them freely.
The fund would come from taxes on employers and wages — mainly 3 percent on gross business receipts, 3.85 percent on income up to $90,000 a year and additional employer and employee taxes on higher incomes. Residents would pay nothing out of pocket.
Most residents and employers pay far more for health care now, Ross said, through premiums, out-of-pocket costs and taxes for Medicaid and indigent patients’ hospital care. That’s the reason he supports a single-payer plan over other alternatives for universal coverage.
“A lot of health economists have looked at this and found this is the only way to cover everyone and save money at the same time,” he said.
The reason is that 24.1 percent of U.S. health care expenses went for administrative overhead in 2003, according to Public Citizen. Administrative costs were 6.8 percent in Canada’s single-payer system, and 2.9 percent in Medicare, the only American single-payer system.
The American Medical Association and America’s Health Insurance Plans oppose single-payer systems, although not necessarily universal coverage. The doctors’ main concern is that economic downturns would reduce taxes and therefore payments.
Insurers naturally oppose being put out of business, but they also express doubts that government can contain costs and improve quality more effectively than private insurers.
“Some powerful people don’t like what we’re doing very much,” Conard said. “But you know what? We’re not going away. There are some very determined people who want this.”
For more information about Monday’s forum, SPAN Ohio or its bill, contact Conard at 299-7536 or gmvspan@aol.com, or go online to www.spanohio.org.
Contact Kevin Lamb at 225-2129.