Across a Universal Health Care Saturday Political Soap Box 35

The election season is upon us.  Negative ads fill the airwaves.  The press is going off on wild tangents.  Gaffes get more play than policy.  Americans cry out for staying focused on the issues, and the rare times politicians do, their eyes glaze over.

So what's a responsible Soapbox blogger to do?  There is so much silly stuff to write about.  Mitt Romney and his top of car riding dog, Paul Ryan and his love affair with Ayn Ran, Joe Biden with his foot in his mouth,  Barack Obama's seeming lack of leadership to focus us on the right things.    

Or I could desperately focus on the real issues at hand, the important decisions we have to make, and hopefully gain a constructive dialogue around it.  And realize by doing so, I may engender fewer page views.  

I have decided to go the issue route, using my I Believe Soapbox from last  as a template.  Which, by the way, did get significantly fewer page views than earlier Soapboxes with more controversial subjects and titles.  Oh, well.

The first topic is the one most central to my political being.  Universal health care.

I believe in universal health care.  This is my passion and one that over-rides virtually all other considerations.  When I look at candidates I first evaluate them on how fast they will bring us to a true universal system.  A single-payer system is the only thing that makes sense to me, from both a fiscal and moral point of view.


I am for universal health-care, meaning everyone is covered and the primary determinant of quality of care is not determined by dollars but by need. The primary vehicle to achieve this, as is done in virtually the entirety of the rest of the industrialized world, is with a single-payer plan. This has many forms, from England's complete nationalized care where doctors, etc. are government employees to Switzerland where private companies do exist but they are heavily, heavily regulated (far beyond anything seen or contemplated in this country). Given the already existing structure in this country, the smartest way to achieve this would by extending Medicare to include everybody. A public option, along with increased regulation, may also achieve most of this, and I am willing to accept it as a compromise.

What has been called Obamacare, is a vital step in this direction, but it is only a step.  It is offering important access that was denied before, controls insurance company's spending on health care instead of overhead and huge corporate salaries, overtime cuts the federal deficit, and gives states the ability to move more rapidly towards a public option if they so choose.  Seeing Obama care attacked as "going too far" makes me sick at heart.

As a CPA, the single payer is the solution that makes the most economic sense. Private health insurance add 30% or more overhead to the cost of health-care, Medicare overhead can be as low as 3%. Who pays for that difference? You do, through increased premiums and increased tax dollars. It's not just evil or greed that motivates private insurers. They are obligated to increase the profits to their shareholders - it is their mandate and reason for existence. They do this by trying to limit their risk, taking greater premiums while minimizing claims.

As a Christian, I feel it is my responsibility, a moral requirement of my faith, to do everything in my power to make sure everyone is covered. There are other faiths and philosophies that will lead to this same conclusion. It is immoral to watch while people die because they cannot afford adequate health-care. It is unconscionable to stand by while people go broke because they get sick. To me, a society is without morals who let people get denied care because of pre-existing conditions. "Let them go to the emergency room" Who are we? Marie Antoinette? Do we have individual responsibility to help? ABSOLUTELY! Do we have a societal responsibility to help as well? ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY YES. There is room for caring people to differ on how this should be accomplished. What we cannot disagree on is that it must be accomplished.

Unlike some, I did not come to this conclusion by some horrific personal stories. I got bothered when my first job in accounting did not offer health insurance, and could not get my first wife covered by any one at any cost because of a pre-existing conditioning. I tried to engage the help of our conservative Christian congressman, who basically told me it was not his problem (this moralistic angel later wound up in prison for financing the building of his house with laundered drug money). This was over twenty-five years ago, and the so-called pre-existing condition has not cost anyone one dime to this day.

I have watched people tied to jobs they did not like in order to maintain coverage. I have seen people presumably well covered by health insurance struggle for months and years to get covered bills paid. In one place Alison and I came to work, we made acquiring health care insurance an essential condition of our employment. This also helped cover a woman who had worked for the employer for many years. He was notorious in not timely paying his bills. He fell behind in paying the insurance at the same time that the woman who had given so much of her life to him had been diagnosed with breast cancer. We had to force him to pay those premiums at practically the point of a gun.

I see canisters in convenience stores where families are desperate to get a child or loved one the needed care or operation just to survive. I know of countless barbecues and fundraisers that just break my heart that this, this is where we concentrate our efforts.

Please don't talk to me about socialized medicine. I care not a whit. We already have socialized medicine. No one gets completely turned away (I hope). We just do it in an inefficient, costly, and morally irresponsible manner.

How much will it cost you? How much money will it cost you if we don't? We already spend some $6,000 more per person than any other country, and with less effective results. Overall, the system with single payer or public option would cost less. Would you personally break even? It's hard to make changes and guarantee that everyone will be in the same position. But the odds are very, very good and I think it's more than worth the risk.

How much will it cost? How much will it cost our soul, individually and as a nation if we do nothing? I'm afraid it would cost more than we can measure.

Every single one of my friends is a good, caring person. But we have lived in a world inundated in the Reagan philosophy of hating government so long, it is almost impossible for some of us to get out of the box to think any differently. I see the government as just one tool in a box of tools to fix something. It just makes no sense to me, to take one of those tools and say oh no,no,no,you can't ever use that one. And I've stated elsewhere, I'm a big checks 'n' balance guy. I don't care what the solution is, it's not going to work without them.

If you have other ideas about how to achieve true universal health-care, please let me know. Just be aware I'm not interested in hearing anything hat falls short of covering everyone.  I may strongly disagree with you, but then again, at least on some elements of it, I may surprise you.

Thanks,

Tom Strait