I’m Not The Only One

by Daniel Cuevas

Originally published on Political Storm on October 18, 2004.

These days it is common to see headlines describing the scores of Americans purchasing their prescription drugs via mail from pharmacies in Canada, where prices are far lower for the same drugs sold in the United States, because their government heavily subsidizes the prices set by the drugs’ manufacturers.
These are the Americans hopelessly stuck in the economic middle: too rich to be eligible for Medicaid (which offers 90 to 100 percent subsidization for medicines and medical treatment), yet too poor to afford Medicare’s poor excuse of subsidized prescription drugs.
But why stop at importing Canadian medicine? Why doesn’t the United States go one step further and import Canada’s universal health care system? Canadian citizens enjoy government-sponsored health care coverage similar to Medicaid, but it is available to a wider range of citizens; people who in the U.S. would be considered middle or upper-class. This is because Canadians view access to medicine and health care services as a right, not a privilege.
The U.S. is one of the few industrialized nations which does not have a national health care system. Countries like Taiwan, Trinidad and Tobago and South Africa all have had universal health care for years. In a nation like ours, that is so obsessed with health, and home to the world’s fattest people, universal health care certainly sounds like a good idea.
Unfortunately, there are a few roadblocks impeding the establishment or even significant dialogue about establishing such a system in the U.S. One such element is McCarthy-style paranoia from half a century ago that inexplicably still haunts us today. Whenever the issue of socialized medicine, which universal health care is, comes up in America, certain segments of the population (mostly conservatives) relate it to communism.
The threat of America becoming a communist state is no longer a reality. We won’t be forced to speak Russian and become atheists the day after a national universal health care system is implemented. A Stalinist/Marxist regime will not overthrow Washington the day after all Americans are given national universal health care.
Another roadblock on the path to universal health care lies in the opposition of three very well-funded special interest groups: private health insurance providers, the pharmaceutical industry, and to some extent, the medical profession itself. At one time or another, all three groups have conducted lobbying campaigns in Congress to discredit the notion of universal health insurance. According to the Connecticut Coalition for Universal Health Care, the pharmaceutical industry alone has 675 lobbyists on Capital Hill.
The third obstacle is the lack of media coverage given to universal health insurance and how it functions in other countries. If universal health care sounds like such a feasible alternative to the current system, why isn’t the American media giving coverage to its proponents? As a journalist myself, I hate to admit it, but it seems the newsrooms of this country’s most prominent media outlets are more interested in covering the problems of the current health care system than in promoting a very feasible solution. I guess one can churn out more stories out of misery than triumph, and therefore sell more newspapers.
The free market system has worked wonders for America and has made us the wealthiest, most powerful country in the world, and it can be attributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. Capitalism is based on a very simple principle: I as the merchant or manufacturer set a price for a product or service. If you, the buyer cannot afford the price I have set, and I am unwilling to negotiate a lower price, then you must simply do without whatever I am selling. This principle is not only unethical in the world of personal health, it is inhuman.
Vital, life-saving medication and treatment are not the same things as a pair of sneakers, a manicure, or a DVD player. It is inhuman to tell anyone that since they cannot pay for health care or medicine, they must simply survive without it. But this is what the pharmaceutical industry tells millions of Americans every day, and this is also the message we receive from our federally-sponsored Medicare system.
There are currently 41 million Americans without health insurance. Often these individuals forego preventative treatment, only going to the hospital or clinic when the condition ailing them has become too severe for them to continue with their daily routine. The clinic or emergency room visits and the surgical procedures that may accompany them often cost more than the checkups would have.
U.S. Census figures offer a more disturbing picture of the uninsured and underinsured American. Despite the economic boom of the 1990s, health costs rose as much as 15-20 percent per year. Today, medical bills are the primary cause of 50 percent of all personal bankruptcies.
The scores of uninsured and underinsured Americans is a testament to the failure of the Medicare system. Congressman Joseph Crowley (D-NY) recently released the findings of a study conducted by the Congressional Committee on Government Reform, which examined exactly how much savings his constituents enrolled in Medicare actually saw with the new prescription drug cards touted by the Bush Administration. The study entitled, “Medicare Prescription Drug Cards: Few Discounts in New York’s Seventh District,” showed retail prices for popular drugs such as Prozac, Prevacid, Celebrex and Lipitor and compared those prices to the Medicare discounts. The entire report can be downloaded at www.crowley.house.gov.
Congressman Crowley found that Medicaid enrollees in his district saw a meager average discount of only 10 percent; not a good thing when a 30-day supply of Celebrex costs $80. By the way, Crowley’s report showed the same amount of Celebrex only costs $38.69 in Canada. “What our seniors need is a guaranteed way to receive access to prescription drugs at an affordable price, not a discount card scheme designed and operated by the pharmaceutical drug companies,” said the Congressman.
Under Canada’s health care plan, the government only uses one insurance plan, which offers comprehensive coverage to all of its citizens. The U.S. however, because of its dependence on HMOs to provide insurance, relies on thousands of different insurance plans, each with its own regulations on coverage eligibility and documentation. Because of the diversity of the multitude of insurance providers, which the U.S. government must interact with and pay, our government incurs far more administrative costs than our neighbors to the north.
In 1999, the New England Journal of Medicine cited that administrative costs accounted for at least 31 percent of the money the U.S. spends on health care. Compare that to the Canadian government, whose administrative costs only make up 16.7 percent of its total health budget.
Universal health insurance is very possible in the United States, and why not? American ingenuity has produced more technological innovations and more culture since 1776 than all of human civilization has in the last few thousand years. I’m sure that if Congress really rolls up its collective sleeves and works to make this a reality, not only will we have a universal health insurance plan like the Canadians, but we might have an even better one to boot.
I certainly don’t have all the answers to the delivery of health services and goods in America. All I know is that millions of Americans are either uninsured or underinsured, and that our government has the resources to make sure no American ever has to choose between paying their medical bills and buying groceries. Imagine being afraid to get sick or injured because you don’t know how you will pay for the hospital visit or stay. The United States is the richest country in the world; let’s start acting like it.

Related posts:  Ghettocine-What 40M Americans Need