A Goiter of Truth In It: We’re ALREADY Paying for “Universal” Health Care
Written on July 9, 2009 – 4:07 am | by AnyIdiotSC
I am so tired of hearing opponents of universal access to health care say that we “can’t possibly afford it.” Folks, we’re ALREADY paying for a twisted and inefficient version of universal care.
Former President George W. Bush famously said it himself, “People have access to health care in America. After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
While the remark rightfully caused an uproar and displayed an all-too-typical Republican disconnect from reality on the street, there is a goiter of truth in it. If you bankrupt yourself from skyrocketing premiums and out-of-pocket medical costs, and if you are sufficiently close to death, you can walk, crawl or get yourself wheeled into any emergency room in the country and get you some triage. Not comprehensive treatment or preventive care or early diagnosis, just fantastically expensive triage. It’s an insanely costly, boneheaded, short-sighted, humiliating and inhumane way to achieve “universal” care, but it gets us there in name.
Over 60% of Americans ALREADY get their health care through the gov’ment as federal, state or local government employees, military and veterans, Medicare/Medicaid recipients, or uninsured whose hospital and doctor cost is partly reimbursed by government..
The inflated cost of care for those folks who use the emergency room for primary care are ALREADY built into total cost we’re ALREADY paying. Hospitals and doctors get reimburse with our tax dollars for some of the cost of handling the uninsured and they pass the rest on to the few who can still afford insurance in the form of higher fees. Which leads to less people who can afford insurance, which leads to higher fees for the remaining inssured, which…. A death spiral.
Giving those currently unable to afford insurance a subsidized public option would mean substituting primary care for emergency room care. Yes, we’d surely see an increase in primary care doctor visits and early treatment, but we would also see a drop in the use of emergency rooms, which are (just a guess, because I’m too lazy to look it up) 3-6 times more expensive. We can also expect saving from getting formerly uninsured folks cared for before their health problems become acute and much more expensive to treat.
And none of the universal care scary cost calculations take into account the hundreds of $billions in productivity that we currently lose because Americans with limited access to care die prematurely or are too debilitated to work.
We’re already paying for “universal” care, why not do it right?
Tags: Health Care, Universal Heatlh Care
