Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The Forty Million Uninsured
According to some politicians, the crisis in our health care system due to persons without health insurance flooding hospital emergency rooms for health care is due to all the illegal immigrants we have in the country. These illegal immigrants don't have health insurance. They don't pay taxes that would support the public schools, yet our schools are flooded with their children. And so it goes. Yada, yada, yada.
Many of you won’t agree with my conclusion, which is that we need a complete change in the way Americans obtain health insurance. Leaving matters to the marketplace, as we are now doing, guarantees that only the very healthiest individuals can obtain health insurance at prices they can afford. To me that’s just not fair and it’s not right. Access to good medical care should be available to all, not just the healthy young and the very rich. We need an insurance system that provides affordable health insurance to everyone and which everyone has. One means of accomplishing this goal is the single-payer plan. Canada uses such a plan. Legislation to establish such a plan for California is in work in the State Legislature, even though a bill to establish single-payer was vetoed last year by Governor Schwarzenegger.
The political problem with single-payer is that it removes private insurers from the lucrative health insurance business. These private insurers have a lot of political influence, spelled M.O.N.E.Y. The single-payer bill was adopted by the Legislature last year. It can be adopted again. We must persuade the Governor to sign the bill. Any suggestions on how to do so will be welcome.
Today the Los Angeles Times has a story about well-to-do professional workers who are self-employed. Two decades ago these professionals obtained health insurance at group rates through their professional associations. Today most of these group plans have been terminated. You can read the story here.
Insurers have been terminating these group plans in recent years because of several effects, including:
- Medical costs have been increasing rapidly.
- Young professionals have been buying individual insurance at rates less than the group rates offered by the professional associations.
- As a result, the cost of insuring the remaining older professionals has increased rapidly.
Many of you won’t agree with my conclusion, which is that we need a complete change in the way Americans obtain health insurance. Leaving matters to the marketplace, as we are now doing, guarantees that only the very healthiest individuals can obtain health insurance at prices they can afford. To me that’s just not fair and it’s not right. Access to good medical care should be available to all, not just the healthy young and the very rich. We need an insurance system that provides affordable health insurance to everyone and which everyone has. One means of accomplishing this goal is the single-payer plan. Canada uses such a plan. Legislation to establish such a plan for California is in work in the State Legislature, even though a bill to establish single-payer was vetoed last year by Governor Schwarzenegger.
The political problem with single-payer is that it removes private insurers from the lucrative health insurance business. These private insurers have a lot of political influence, spelled M.O.N.E.Y. The single-payer bill was adopted by the Legislature last year. It can be adopted again. We must persuade the Governor to sign the bill. Any suggestions on how to do so will be welcome.
Labels: effect of illegal immigrants, Health insurance crisis, insurance for self-employed professionals, single-payer
