Like a house on fire...

I've been arguing a lot lately with people on both sides of the issue of health care and health care reform. I chose to take a minute today and address a few of my reasons for feeling that American health care needs a major overhaul.

First, lets just look at the beginning. According to the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau (http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/p60-235.pdf), approximately 15.3 percent of U.S. citizens had NO insurance in 2007. That's about 45.7 million people. It is also worthwhile to not that many of those uninsured raise the cost of health care for everyone; often, they will let health problems go until they require emergency treatment, clogging emergency rooms and costing much more than earlier care would require.

In addition, even having insurance is no guarantee of coverage. It's easy to laugh at cartoons like this one by Tom Tomorrow:

But every one of us has had a friend or loved one lose their coverage or be priced out of it because they were, in essence, too likely to need it. This process is called rescission, and it not only happens, it is encouraged by the insurance companies. In a recent L.A. Times article by Lisa Girion (http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jun/17/business/fi-rescind17):

"When times are good, the insurance company is happy to sign you up and take your money in the form of premiums," Stupak said. "But when times are bad, and you are afflicted with cancer or some other life-threatening disease, it is supposed to honor its commitments and stand by you in your time of need.

"Instead, some insurance companies use a technicality to justify breaking its promise, at a time when most patients are too weak to fight back," he said.

Capitalism is one thing, but when profit is put above a person's health, I think that the system has failed.

I can hear, even now, the calls of "Socialist!" coming from the peanut gallery. "How dare you put a government bureaucrat between me and my doctor!" I hate to break it too you, but you have a bureaucrat between you and your doctor already, and rather than working for you, he is working for a CEO who wants his million dollar bonus this year.

The fact of the matter is that some services are better handled by the public sector than the private sector. When a person's house catches fire, they don't wonder if they can afford to have the Fire Department come put out the fire. We all contribute to insure that if we or one of our neighbors have a fire, it is taken care of. Why should health care be any different?

"We can't do it," say the loyal opposition. "It would lead to rationing, just like in Canada!" Well, let's ask a Canadian. Rhonda Hackett, a Canadian expat clinical psychologist living in the US wrote an article for the Denver Post last month:

(http://www.denverpost.com/recommended/ci_12523427)

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost.

Myth: There are long waits for care, which compromise access to care.There are no waits for urgent or primary care in Canada. There are reasonable waits for most specialists' care, and much longer waits for elective surgery. Yes, there are those instances where a patient can wait up to a month for radiation therapy for breast cancer or prostate cancer, for example. However, the wait has nothing to do with money per se, but everything to do with the lack of radiation therapists. Despite such waits, however, it is noteworthy that Canada boasts lower incident and mortality rates than the U.S. for all cancers combined, according to the U.S. Cancer Statistics Working Group and the Canadian Cancer Society. Moreover, fewer Canadians (11.3 percent) than Americans (14.4 percent) admit unmet health care needs.

And that is just regarding rationing. She also looks at what percent of GDP the Candians spend versus us and the tax burden it creates (here's a hint- it's about the same as us). Oh, and picking your own doctor? Not a problem.

So, in the great American Spirit, I say we can do it. More importantly, we should do it. Our house is on fire. Call the Fire Department.