Note: All opinions are those of Pat Schwind only, & not those of anyone else at Impact Mortgage Network.
Former Naval Officer & Los Angeles Dept. of Health Services Medical Director, Dr. Jonathan Weisbuch, is an expert on Health Care (H-C), & H-C Reform. Some form of “Universal Coverage” works quite well in virtually every other industrial nation on earth, except the US, & costs way less per capita than we spend for less coverage. Too many stupid Americans cheer for non-stop, “full-tilt boogie” war - often just a waste of innocent life & national treasure - but they begrudge medical care for our own people as “socialism”. Mass Murder abroad is called “patriotic”, while comprehensive H-C is ridiculed. Hmmmmmmm?
Dr. Weisbuch has an incredible resume which includes a civil engineering degree from MIT, Medical School at NYU, & post graduate work at the Harvard School of Public Policy. He was drafted soon after the assassination of JFK, & was the chief medical officer on the Nuclear Sub, USS John C. Calhoun, (9/94 - 3/66). He's held significant positions in some of the most prestigious hospitals & dangerous prisons in America, in Kentucky, Massachusetts, North Dakota, & Wyoming. He finished his career as the Los Angeles Dept. of Health Services Medical Director, & finally the top Health Officer for Maricopa County, here in AZ.
He was one of the founders of "Physicians for 9-11 Truth", & believes without doubt, as do thousands of other scientists, engineers, architects, doctors & health professionals, historians, mathematicians & physicists, attorneys, social workers, cops, fireman, & other diverse professionals, that "9-11 was an INSIDE JOB"!
He realizes that H-C costs in America are "sky-rocketing", but that the problem has almost nothing to do with "exorbitant lawsuits", caring for "illegals", "government waste & corruption", trying to provide "universal coverage", or "bleeding heart liberal crack-pot ideas". In fact he says, it's the result of:
1) "Welfare for the Rich": Subsidizing so many "Bad Industries", e.g. "Big Agra": High Fructose Corn Syrup, Ethanol, Feed Lots, & Meat Consumption in general.
2) The unchecked influence of lobbyists, especially on the part of "Big Pharma" & "Big Insurance", who "line the pockets" of political campaigns.
3) "Traditional Medicine's reliance on pills & procedures, at the expense of education & prevention.
4) Lack of "Basic Care", especially Pre-Natal, "Well Baby" & Pediatric care, especially for the poor who lack any medical insurance.
5) The "Profit Motive" on the part of corporations (e.g. hospitals) & other providers, at the expense of "what's right" for society in general, or the patient specifically.
6) The 3 major segments in the system, 1) patients, 2) providers & 3) payers (Insurance Companies, PPO's, HMO's, the Government, etc.), are "at odds with each other", with no incentive for cooperation much of the time. This results in administrative costs in most "private" components of the system, that eat up 20% - 25% of the money spent in those systems, that primarily involve trying to "shift the cost" to another player in the system, or struggle to get paid from other players, who themselves are trying to "shift the cost" to another entity, or simply back to the patient.
As a nation, we don't question the concept of collectively paying to enjoy the benefits of clean air & clean water, as a "right" every citizen should have. But the conservatives constantly claim that "health care is not a right, but a privilege"! This is insane. If we need clean air & clean water to be healthy, & we think it's OK to pay for it as a national priority, then why should we not collectively pay for H-C as a national priority?
Empirical evidence has shown that it costs less money to care for generally healthy people, than people who tend to be sick. But as long as the Right Wing "echo machine" continues to spew lies about what's really wrong, and GOP & conservative Dem politicians are nothing but a "road block" to progress, based on purely ideological reasons, vs. empirical evidence, the situation will improve, only slowly, if at all.
The facts are simple:
1) "Universal Coverage" works quite well in virtually every other industrial nation on earth, except the US, & costs way less per capita than we spend for less coverage. These other countries spend about $4K per capita per year to provide quite adequate coverage. In the U.S. it's about $7K, but we "don't cover" about 25% - 30% of our citizens, and over the course of any year in recent American history, up to 40% of Americans will be without medical coverage for some part of that year.
2) America spends about 15% - 20% of our GDP on H-C, while most European nations spend 6% - 11%. And our results SUCK! Most nations with "universal care" have "infant mortality" & "low birth weight baby" rates of 3% - 4%; In the U.S., it's 7%.
3) Government (Single Payer")plans like the "VA", Medicare, Medicaid, the "Indian Health Care System", etc., are terribly successful programs, that
involve only a loss of 4% - 5% to "admin. costs", vs. 20% - 25% in "private plans", where Insurance Companies, HMO's, PPO's, etc., spend so much money &
time "shifting costs" to other players.
4) Most major hospitals & doctors' offices in the U.S. have 2 - 3
"admin workers" for every "care provider"!! Why, because so many of those "admins" spend most of their time trying to get other players to pay bills, or shift bills their office is "supposed to pay" to some body else in the system.
5) "Tort Reform" which the right wings scream has to be the basis of any H-C Reform, is a total "red herring", since "exorbitant malpractice lawsuits" account for at most, 1% to 2% of the cost of H-C in America.
"Single Payer" plans, that work all over the world, are not "socialism" at all. They use private providers to serve patients in every aspect of the H-C system. Just like we have a "single payer" defense industry:
Our government, (the 'single payer'), pays hundreds of corporations, who
overcharge us by a factor of 5, 10, 50 times what's "really fair & honest",
for everything they sell the gov't. E.g. Boeing, Bechtel, Honeywell,
Northrop-Grumman, Blackwater, Sperry...... Do conservatives scream "but
that's single payer defense....that's socialism", as they butcher &
brutalize innocent brown people all over the world, in the misnamed mission
of "protecting our freedom"?
When people drive their SUV's on "single payer" provided roads, bridges, & highways, the gov't, (the 'single payer'), pays hundreds, if not thousands of
private contractors to build & repair all that stuff. Do people cry
"but that's socialized road construction", as their subsidized meat on the
hoof, gets transported from one subsidized animal torture facility, (the
feed lot), to another, (the butcher & packing house)?
Our local gov't pays for public employees like cops, fireman, social
workers & teachers. When a house is on fire, or we need a cop because a
libertarian who ran a stop sign he doesn't believe in, hits another car, do the victims tell the 9-11 operator: "Make sure you don't send some instrument of socialism out here" to put out the
fire, or "get the guy who ran the stop sign"? Of course not!
So then why do the Right Wing Nut Jobs scream that "single payer medical care is socialism"? Because they're not concerned about the facts or what's right for America, based on evidence, history or reason. They just want war & tax cuts at all costs, regardless of how bad they destroy our nation.
I'm not going to go into much detail about where the H-C system's revenue comes from or goes to, in this short summary. It's just too complicated, & most folks would just "glaze over & give up". Dr. Weisbuch recommends reading T.R.Reid's "Healing America", which lays out in detail why America is ranked 37th in the provision of H-C, while we spend way more per capita than any other nation.
Dr. Weisbuch did suggest a very logical approach which I'll try to summarize here: Medicare is a very cost effective program, despite the claims of "fraud & abuse" that have recently hit the news. Those claims are valid to some extent, but "let's go after the specific cases involved, prosecute the criminals, & not throw out the baby with the bath-water"!
If we expanded the eligible age to qualify for Medicare coverage, by lowering the age limit from age 65, by 15 years, every year for the next 5 years, we could in those 5 years, eventually cover every American. In the first year we'd drop the age limit to age 50, then in the second year to age 35, then age 20, age 5, & finally to birth.
If conservatives could get more concerned about really doing something to help the nation, instead of trying to steal elections for the GOP, this would be a simple matter. In fact, if H-C reform were championed by a White GOP president, instead of a Black Dem, conservatives would say "why didn't we try this a long time ago? This makes sense!"
But conservatives & their racist hordes in the "Greater Confederacy" don't care about what's good or right for America. They'd prefer a nation of low taxes & little regulation, where they can abuse the environment, the poor & middle class to their hearts' content.
Since we'd need a constitutional convention to eliminate the power held by the U.S. Senate, where the average voter in a small "Red State" has 10 - 30+ times the power of the average voter in a "progressive", "Blue State", and since too many Dem politicians are spineless wimps & corporate whores themselves, I doubt that we'll really get significant change any time soon.
Even if Obama can muster the Dems to use procedural rules to get legislation passed via "Reconciliation", with just 50 or 51 votes in the Senate, I'm very skeptical this will work for long, & believe the conservatives will be
"back in the saddle", sooner than we can imagine. But America doesn't really deserve good government, because not enough people are willing to truly fight for it!!
Have a nice day!