“Medicare for all” should be U.S. health care policy

It’s truly good to see the health care issue has come to prominent national, state and local attention. However, most conservatives have a “do-nothing” attitude, while many liberals are taking a truly mediocre approach.

Doing nothing, as President Barack Obama said, is not an option and based on little more than ideological, not factual, “Teabag” fury. Simultaneously, the Obama Administration’s plan is one of vague, low expectations.

The fact remains that more than 15 percent of Americans  (according to a Sept. 16, 2009 Reuters news article, “Uninsured Americans Hope Reform Brings Health Coverage” by Nick Carey) are uninsured and emergency rooms are where their expensive treatment takes place. Hospitals must eat the cost and risk closing. No insurance (“Lack of Insurance Linked to 45,000 Deaths” by Elizabeth Cooney, Boston Globe, Sept. 17, 2009) also means death to roughly 45,000 individuals per year.

Many more Americans, meantime, are under-insured and burdened by high deductibles and co-pays, and no preventative coverage.  Never mind the burden placed on employers who still provide insurance as costs outpace inflation rates.

The administration’s weak mixed-market “public option” struggling through Congress serves only to enrich the insurance and pharmaceutical industries. The Democratic Party, the majority in Congress, should be pushing “Medicare for all.”

Under “Medicare for all” every citizen, including lawmakers, would be insured and vested in the maintenance and success of the system. Additionally, health care administrative overhead, as we currently see with Medicare, would be about 5 percent. Comparatively, for private insurance companies, it’s wastefully more than 17 percent (Medicare versus Private Health Insurance by Mike E. Litow, 2006). Costs would also not accelerate far beyond the rate of inflation with “Medicare for all.”

But isn’t the issue of health care really one of self-preservation? People are happy with their doctors but what about insurance companies? And how many more people must lose coverage before private insurance is realized as unreliable?

“Medicare for all” doesn’t mean government doctors, like those in the U.K., or silly Sarah Palin “death panels.” It means being able to call this a truly caring, proactive, intelligent nation.

Pete Ponzetti

WMU Alumnus (2005)

Short URL: http://www.westernherald.com/?p=8876

Posted by heraldstaff on Sep 30 2009. Filed under Letters to the Editor, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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