The Earth-Toned Pill

This weekend we had a combined birthday party for my grandma and cousin at my mom's house, as yet another fine excuse to use her gigantic new pool. later in the evening after the party, mom and I were talking a bit of politics and got on the topic of health care. It was really great to hear her perspective on this, as she is a nurse manager with just under 30 years of experience in the field and has a clear view on what the challenges facing health care consumers and workers are.

From my perspective, it's nearly impossible for someone like me to get things like dental surgery or major medical procedures done, because the costs involved are simply astronomical. I have direct experience on the dental side, as my dental insurance covers much less than regular medical insurance and only allows for a capped dollar amount of work per year. For me, that means a single root canal in a year and no other procedures. Anything else is at my own expense. I know that there are many cons to publicly-funded health care as implemented in countries like Canada, Great Britain and Germany, but any publicly-funded plan certainly has to be a better solution than the broken hybrid public/private system we currently have here in the States.

The fight for publicly-funded health care in the United States also serves as an excellent way for voters to actually see what their presidential candidate is all about, and serves to show just how alike the current three main contenders really are, in that none of them truly advocate a fundamental shift in how we treat health care. I should note here that among all presidential candidates, only Dennis Kucinich advocated universal coverage. Case and point, here is Barack Obama's angle on the health care debate as shown on his website:

"I...believe that every American has the right to affordable health care. I believe that the millions of Americans who can't take their children to a doctor when they get sick have that right...We now face an opportunity - and an obligation - to turn the page on the failed politics of yesterday's health care debates. It's time to bring together businesses, the medical community, and members of both parties around a comprehensive solution to this crisis, and it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair."

I translate this as, unfortunately, a variation on 'business as usual' theme and not a genuine lunge at change that our country so desperately requires and that Obama says he can deliver. Obama, like Clinton, still favors a mixed public/private model, albeit expanded on the public side. They both say that this is a step towards universal coverage, but it my mind we need to work towards completely eliminating or marginalizing the insurance and drug lobby before any serious step towards truly universal health care coverage for all Americans can take place. And on another point, for both Clinton and Obama's plans there is an expansion to what businesses will have to contribute to the program. This makes the conservative part of me shiver, especially since I am (hopefully) going to be re-joining the ranks of self-employed small business owners soon! But the Republican solution to the problem advocated by those like John McCain involve only tax incentives and/or changing the tax code to make private insurance more reasonable for consumers.

During my conversation with mom about all this, part of what we were talking about was the fact that there is so much money in the health care industry. To validate this statement, I've read that in 2006 alone, our nation's healthcare expenditures totalled $2.2 trillion. Think about that... $2.2 Trillion. There are a lot of people out there who are hard-working individuals and have either no insurance or crappy insurance, while there are doctors out there making between $1-2 million a year just to administer anesthesia to patients... I'm not trying to say that doctors (anesthesiologists in particular) aren't skilled and don't deserve high pay for what they do, but do they really need to make $1 million a year? I think not. What I do think is that every American is entitled to easily-accessible health care.

If it were my choice, I'd introduce something along these lines:

1. Expand Medicare to provide universal medical coverage for all American citizens, period, funded through taxation. Lower/no-income individuals will receive tax breaks, but those receiving breaks will be subject to basic oversight to ensure that a healthy, able-bodied person is not abusing the system unecessarily
2. Provide tuition and fees repayment of up to 75% for doctors and 50% for medical technicians in certain fields upon completion of their degrees
3. Cap medical specialist incomes at no more than $200,000 per year, based on medical specialty
4. Cap public and private hospital senior administation incomes at no more than $150,000 per year
5. Abolish all state-based Medicaid programs
6. Give the option to consumers to purchase additional coverage, at their own cost through private insurance providers
7. Provide federal tax and subsidy incentives for drug companies that develop drug lines that have been neglected in the past, like more effective antibiotics to combat increased drug resistance

Like my friend Johnny says: 'I guess I'm a little socialist for agreeing with you."

Is that a bad thing?