I’m puzzled at the repeated cry about saving Medicare. “How can we save Medicare?” they ask. Why are there no cries about “Saving the FBI”? Or “How can we save The Marine Corps?”
Our policymakers will say “That’s absurd! - Medicare is a completely different thing - it’s apples and oranges.” Well, so why can’t we fix that and make it all apples?
When the government needs something, it budgets and taxes to make sure we have it, like highways, defense, fire departments, etc.
Isn’t healthcare for all citizens a national need, the same as highways and fire departments?
The United States spends approximately twice as much as other high-income countries on healthcare, and yet dozens of countries with universal healthcare have better medical care, cheaper drugs, lower infant mortality, and a longer life expectancy than the U.S.
There are two possible explanations: (1) The U.S. is stupider than other countries, or (2) For-profit corporations and their paid politicians are sucking money out of the system to put into their own pockets.
The for-profit health insurance corporations themselves provide no healthcare at all - they merely approve/deny claims in their expensive office cubicles.
In recent years, insurance and drug interests have contributed hundreds of millions to congressional candidates to gain influence with them. The CEOs of 70 of the largest U.S. healthcare companies cumulatively have earned $9.8 billion in personal income in the seven years since the Affordable Care Act was passed (source: Axios). All of that represents money that we paid to the insurance and drug companies for our healthcare, but that instead went into people’s pockets. Couldn’t that money be used for real healthcare?
Annual costs for “Medicare for All” have been estimated by many nonpartisan organizations as between $2 trillion and $3 trillion. Here’s an easy answer: The U.S. is currently spending much more than $3 trillion for healthcare, so there’s the money, with some left over - maybe to help the thousands of Americans who delay or skip going to the doctor now because they can’t afford it, and who subsequently reap the dire consequences.
Retirees, of whom there are many in this area, are required to negotiate a dizzying maze of healthcare issues - copays, open seasons, tables of optional plans, “Medicare Advantage,” drug coverage with its year-to year changes, Part A, Part B - and this at a time in their lives when making one bad decision can have especially terrible consequences. It is unfair to place this tangled mess on them.
A single-payer system would do away with all that. Our foot-dragging at solving this issue is a national disgrace.
But as long as the insurance predators and big pharma are in charge of our lawmakers, it’s not likely to change.
Shame on us.
Peter Schultz
Lewes
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