Allies rally for health care reform
By John Morgan
The Pennsylvania Progressive
Sept. 19, 2008
LANCASTER, Penn. — “No person’s well being can be reduced to a price and bought and sold without moral and ethical considerations. Persons are more than ‘consumers’ of the goods and services produced by the health care system: all are entitled to care, respect, and compassion, regardless of their state of health, their medical history, their personal circumstances or their ability to pay.”
With those words Rev. Sandra Strauss of the Pennsylvania Council of Churches, put the issue of health care in perspective last evening at Franklin and Marshall College. Health care is a basic human right, established in our Declaration of Independence as the inalienable right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
Eighteen thousand Americans die every year, 126,000 of them since 9/11, because they do not have access to medical care. Hundreds of thousands more are underinsured and die prematurely. All of this in a nation which spends half of all money in the world on health care for 5 percent of the population. This in a nation which only has the 17th best medical care in the world despite spending double what some civilized countries do for far less.
State Senator Jim Ferlo, sponsor of Senate Bill 300, stated “We need to shed light on this life and death issue. This college (F&M) produced five signers of the Declaration of Independence. These were community activists. We have a system that is sick and dying, we need radical reform for the system.
The radical reform is a publicly accountable, privately delivered system of providing comprehensive medical care to every resident of Pennsylvania: everybody in, nobody out. Funding an efficient government based agency to collect premiums from individuals and businesses to fund about $45 billion/year in health care would save about one third of what Pennsylvanians are currently spending and insuring that every person has complete access to care.
Rep. Kathy Manderino, the bill’s House sponsor, spoke clearly about the path facing the bill in Harrisburg. An economic feasibility study needs to be funded by the state legislature so exact figures on the costs of each service are matched to revenues and projections are made for the future. Since the House and Senate will be adjourning in a few weeks however the bill must be reintroduced in January in the new session.
Manderino later explained the obstacles in convincing some people to surrender their current coverage for something new. Her analogy of the plight of the homeless was interesting and on the money. We must remember it is what’s being heard, not always what’s being said, and we must hone our message to raise support.
She called for everyone in attendance to speak with everyone they know and encounter regularly to speak with their legislators to raise grassroots support. House Representatives and Senators, she pointed out, will support something which has widespread support in their districts.
Dr. Walter Tsou explained how the current financial crisis is going to severely impact premiums this year. Health insurers investment portfolios are taking serious losses, just like your investment and 401(k) accounts. Unlike you, however, they are required to maintain certain levels of reserves. As these disappear they will be made up for in higher premiums. You’d better grab your wallet.
Dr. Tsou showed a comparison of the single payer plan with Gov. Rendell’s ABC Plan which has no cost containment and will only add 270,000 people to coverage over five years, not even enough to keep up with those losing coverage. Should John McCain’s plan pass millions more Pennsylvanians may lose their employer based health insurance as business loses tax credits for providing these benefits.
Bill George of the PA AFL-CIO spoke by video and said the system is broken and “we can’t afford the system we have now. The stakeholders have to come together. Just covering the uninsured won’t solve the problem.”
That’s the point: the central problem is the overhead. Health insurers, with their CEO salaries, duplicative bureaucracy, advertising and denial of claims to feed their bottom lines are the problem. No plan that keeps the insurance industry is workable.
Current health spending has 31 cents of every dollar going to overhead. Compared with Medicare’s (comparable single payer system) 3 percent administrative costs this brings the costs of medical care so low that everyone can be covered with fully comprehensive coverage with no deductibles or co-pays. All care from dental to vision to long term care is covered. No one comes between you and your doctor, no bureaucrat, no claims adjustor, no agent. No one. Only you and your doctor decide what is medically needed to care for your medical needs (outside of elective cosmetic surgery.)
Donna Smith who appeared in “Sicko” spoke about one woman she met who was trapped on Medicaid because she couldn’t go back to work and lose her medical coverage. She was uninsurable. This woman wonders “what she might have been” had she had the opportunity to contribute to society.
Dawn Ali, a nurse who once owned a dialysis clinic says she sold the business because of the constant hassle fighting insurance companies for payments. She added how much will be saved from medical providers no longer having to pay business staffs simply to fight with health insurers to get paid for the medical services they provide.
Wes Fisher of the American Medical Students Association announced they will be conducting a lobby day in Harrisburg on October 6th. Please come to the capital and speak with your legislators.
Alan Jacobs of Isaac’s Deli mentioned how he covers 200 employees when different insurance coverages, workman’s comp, business liability, health and auto coverages fight one another to pass the buck on which is responsible for claims until no one pays.
Mentioning John McCain’s convention statement that “no bureaucrat should decide your medical care” Jacobs said he decides that every year: “Every year I decide what they’ll get, what they’ll pay and what doctors they’ll get to see, what medicines they can receive and then the insurance company decides whether they’ll pay.”
Right now you have little say over your doctors, your medicines, what hospital you must be in, who will pay, if anyone and face medical bankruptcy if you have no coverage.
Half of all bankruptcies in Pennsylvania are due to medical care. We are all one accident, one major illness away from bankruptcy. I have a friend with whom I spent some time recently who has gone bankrupt because his employer did not provide health insurance. After a surgery and lengthy rehabilitation he is now bankrupt and homeless. Foreclosure took his home.
This should never happen in America and we have the opportunity to insure it never happens again in Pennsylvania.
As Rev. Strauss said, this is an ethical and moral issue. No company should have the power of life and death over a human being and base that decision on their bottom line.