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Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Call to Support Justice and Fairness in Heath Care

It's been a while since I've posted--summertime laziness (soon to come to an end) and a workshop I taught last week got in the way. There are, as always, several things worth blogging about. But today, the most important one worth mentioning is National Health Care Call-In Day. The AFL-CIO and Health Care for America Now have set up a toll-free call line--at 877-264-4226--that will allow you to connect with the offices of your Congressional Representatives and Senators, and leave a message in support of national health care reform. Even if you live in a state where such calls are practically guaranteed to not make a difference in their votes--as I almost certainly do--helping to put hundreds, hopefully thousands, perhaps millions, of message of support out there just might make a difference in the views of some Blue Dog Democrats or liberal Republicans on the fence in the House and the Senate, if only by making clear, beyond the noise of the spin machine, that a lot of Americans really would like a more just and fair health care system.

Do the various bills, proposals, and amendments being hashed out in Congress as we speak really promise that? No--but they promise something much closer to it than anything else on the horizon, and certainly they promise something closer to it than what the status quo offers us. Look, my own perverse mix of populist and localist and socialist and traditionalist ideas don't provide me with any brilliant insights into how to provide health care to all who need it. What I do know, though, can be summed up in these seven basic claims:

1) Satisfying the health needs of yourself and your family is of crucial importance to a good life.

2) Depending upon every individual on their own to satisfy said needs, especially in an environment where the costs of medicine and medical care continually increase, will result in massive unfairness in who receives care, and when, and how.

3) In every modern democratic industrialized nation, that unfairness gets addressed, one way or another, either poorly or effectively.

4) In every other modern democratic industrialized nation besides the United States, the way they do it is by providing some sort of minimal health guarantees to every person, whether by having a single-payer (that is, government-funded) system, as in Canada, or having a national health insurance system, as in Great Britain, or some mixture of these and other systems.

5) In the United States, the way we do it is by allowing those without insurance, without family doctors, with pharmacy accounts, to go to hospital emergency rooms and get treatment, the costs of for which are passed along to the hospitals' insurance companies, which they then pass along to all the rest of us, in the form a higher premiums, higher co-pays, and less coverage.

6) This is really a stupid way to go about addressing the needs of those who can't afford proper medical care.

7) The plans coming through the House and Senate, whatever their faults--and, let's be clear on this, they have many--will at least make sure this foolish, humiliating, expensive practice comes to an end, period.

If you agree with, or at least acknowledge the general point of, those seven claims, then you have no good reason whatsoever not to pick up the phone and spend 10 minutes of your time expressing your support for House Resolution 3200, and your support for continuing efforts to get a bill written and moving forward in the Senate. Will you like the bills which will finally--after much compromising and horse-trading and whatnot--escape conference committee and be voted on and be sent to President Obama to sign? Maybe not. There are so many ways this promise can go wrong. They took the single-payer option (surely the most straightforward of all universal coverage systems) off the table without any serious discussion. (Remind your friends who are gnashing their teeth about "government-run health care" that that isn't even being contemplated by the House and Senate.) They are quibbling over the amount of money to spend. (Obviously, there will be costs associated with this in the beginning--it's only to going to require that insurance be offered to 47 million people who currently don't have it, whether through a "public option" which the government would directly provide to poor individuals, or through subsidies to families and businesses. Those costs will be recovered--and overall health care expenditures will decline--once the abuse of our emergency rooms come to an end...but that won't happen overnight.) And of course, there are all the looming questions about America's habits--as both medical providers and as consumers of health care--and how they contribute to an unsustainable health care system which lay behind all these debates: relentless overtesting, obesity and irresponsible eating, the perverse incentives of fee-for-service payment plans, an obsession with staying young and independent at all costs, etc. Any truly long-lasting movements towards more justice and fairness in health care will have to look at these.

But first, you have to do something to address the broken, wasteful, unfair structure which supports all of the above. And that's what Congress right now, after so many failed attempts over the years, is trying to make happen. We can't vote in Congressional committees or on the floor of the House or Senate, but we can make a phone call. So do so. I just did, and it was worth it.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your "justice and fairness" sounds to me like "higher taxes, bigger deficits, rationing of care, interference with doctors' medical judgment, limitations on individual behavior (with fat and sugar taxes already being discussed as ways of paying for this), bankrupting of small businesses, and driving a stake through the heart of an economy that's in worse shape than it has every been in your lifetime." I think I'll find another number to call.

Anonymous said...

And after your call, you could get your own blog and post your opinions. Anonymously, of course.

Russell Arben Fox said...

Anonymous #1,

I think I'll find another number to call.

Fair enough, of course. But allow me to note, before you go, some possible problems with your complaint:

"higher taxes"--which are worse than continually higher premiums, I presume. Also, those higher taxes will be progressively scaled (but perhaps you are opposed to any higher taxes on anyone for any reason whatsoever).

"bigger deficits"--because there's no possible way that a workforce with close to 50 million people that would no longer have to scramble and put doctor's bills on credit cards and stick with unproductive jobs might result in more taxes being paid.

"rationing of care"--which certainly doesn't happen now, what with insurance copies forcing people with pre-existing conditions off their roles and emergency rooms trying to placate their insurers by desperately shipping indigent patients around.

"interference with doctor's medical judgment"--which also certainly doesn't ever happen now, both in the way I mentioned above and in perverse-incentive fashion of otherwise common-sensical doctors having every reason in the world to push their patients towards multiple, repetitive treatments.

"limitations on individual behavior"--you're right: heaven forbid that the law ought to take into account our inalienable individual right to engage in ridiculous and destructive personal habits when they start tallying up costs.

"bankrupting small business"--the overhwleming majority of small businesses are already tangled up in the health care mess, and about 96% of them won't find any of their costs changing. For those that do, there are subsidies in place in the bill.

"driving a stake through the heart of an economy that's in worse shape than it has every been in your lifetime"--right, because when the economy is in bad shape, that's the wrong time to attempt to fix any of it.

Anonymous said...

Some possible problems with your responses:

"continually higher premiums"--Obamacare doesn't impact medical costs that are reflected in insurance premiums. It just changes how the costs are distributed. Progressive or not, the top 10% of earners can't and won't pay for the health care of 50 million Americans (and more in the future).

"50 million people scrambling"--60% of the "47 million" have household incomes under $50K. A fifth of the "47 Million" are children who, with or without health care, won't be paying taxes. Giving people free health care will not pay for itself. It will be a net drain on the economy. Bigger deficits.

"which certainly doesn't happen now"--Not on the scale that it would, were the current proposal enacted.

"perverse incentives"--Silence about "defensive medicine." Tort reform can never be part of the solution, right? Ask any doctor why they perform tests or do procedures that they think are wasteful and the most common answer is that it's CYA for potential medical malpractice claims. Instead of listening to doctors, the Democrats listen to the trial lawyers that line their campaign coffers.

"heaven forbid"--You think eating french fries is a ridiculous and destructive personal habit that the government should be able to ban or stiffly tax? If so, then, yes, heaven forbid.

"96% of small businesses"--Really? None of the small business owners I know believe this will have no impact on them. They're following the debate closely and many are reading the bill.

"a bad time to fix any of it"--Reform of the medical system does not "fix" the economy. It doesn't provide incentives for domestic or foreign investment. It doesn't spur job growth (except for new government bureaucracies). It doesn't go to any of the root causes of the current crisis. Yes, it's a bad time to raise taxes on anyone. It's a bad time to impose new costs and constraints on any employer. Giving insurance to the uninsured is a worthy goal, but we can't afford it now.

Obama and the Democratic congressional leadership have overreached in a dangerous way. This isn't a Republican-versus-Democrat 50/50 debate. This is a 60/40 debate, with moderate Democrats joining Republicans in opposition to a sweeping, costly, hastily thrown together plan. It will go down in flames, as it should. But it may make it harder for Obama to lead on a more incremental, fiscally responsible reform program. He should have stuck the camel's nose in the tent, rather than trying to cram the whole dromedary inside in one fell swoop.

Paul said...

“They are quibbling over the amount of money to spend. (Obviously, there will be costs associated with this in the beginning--it's only to going to require that insurance be offered to 47 million people who currently don't have it, whether through a "public option" which the government would directly provide to poor individuals, or through subsidies to families and businesses. Those costs will be recovered--and overall health care expenditures will decline--once the abuse of our emergency rooms come to an end...but that won't happen overnight.)”

What do you know about Medi/ Medi or Healthy Families?