Will We See Health Care Reform?

The Republican Party and their lobbyist friends from the health care and pharmaceutical industries are bad mouthing public option health care reform and as is typical lauding the USA for having the best health care in the world - assuming, of course that one is wealthy and has access to Rolls Royce insurance plans. Sadly, most of us do not fall into that category and over 45 million Americans have no health care coverage whatsoever. Meanwhile, the Democrats are acting spineless and may likely screw up the opportunity to make the systemic change that is needed.

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I am passionate about health care reform because health care costs are a major burden on small businesses and families as I know well from experience. Personally, my financial difficulties began when one of my children had bacterial meningitis. Even though we had "good coverage" and Anthem paid out benefits in the six figures, due to co-pays, stop loss and policy limits, our savings were wiped out and it took years to pay off the last of the hospital and doctor bills. My child had a miracle recovery and I'd expend the money again, but in the supposedly most advanced county in the world, citizens should not have to be destroyed financially just to secure needed health care.

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Countering the lies and misstatements of the opponents of systemic health care reform are a number of columns and articles. One is a column by economist Paul Krugman in the New York Times which argues that the public option IS financially possible and notes that France - which is constantly derided by members of the GOP base - has a health care system that covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as the U.S. system.

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The Congressional Budget Office has looked at the future of American health insurance, and it works. . . . last week the budget office scored the full proposed legislation from the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP). And the news — which got far less play in the media than the downbeat earlier analysis — was very, very good. Yes, we can reform health care.

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Let me start by pointing out something serious health economists have known all along: on general principles, universal health insurance should be eminently affordable. After all, every other advanced country offers universal coverage, while spending much less on health care than we do. For example, the French health care system covers everyone, offers excellent care and costs barely more than half as much per person as our system.

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And even if we didn’t have this international evidence to reassure us, a look at the U.S. numbers makes it clear that insuring the uninsured shouldn’t cost all that much, for two reasons. First, the uninsured are disproportionately young adults, whose medical costs tend to be relatively low. The big spending is mainly on the elderly, who are already covered by Medicare.

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Second, even now the uninsured receive a considerable (though inadequate) amount of “uncompensated” care, whose costs are passed on to the rest of the population. So the net cost of giving the uninsured explicit coverage is substantially less than it might seem.

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And those who prefer not to buy insurance from the private sector would be able to choose a public plan instead. This would, among other things, bring some real competition to the health insurance market, which is currently a collection of local monopolies and cartels.

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The only question now is whether a combination of persuasion from President Obama, pressure from health reform activists and, one hopes, senators’ own consciences will get the centrists on board — or at least get them to vote for cloture, so that diehard opponents of reform can’t block it with a filibuster.

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This is a historic opportunity — arguably the best opportunity since 1947, when the A.M.A. killed Harry Truman’s health-care dreams. We’re right on the cusp. All it takes is a few more senators, and HELP will be on the way.

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Everyone needs to call their Senators and Congressmen/women and demand that the vote for health care reform.