On Wednesday evening, December 17th, a health care coalition group met in Ventura in response to the request from former Senator Tom Daschle. Daschle, the member of President Elect Obama’s transition team designated as Secretary of Health and Human Services, stipulated that groups concerned about the health care disaster in this country should meet before December 31 to discuss proposals for reform.
The group meeting in Ventura comprised representatives from a range of party affiliations and activist organizations. That being so, the complete unanimity of opinion expressed was something of a surprise. Everyone at the meeting strongly urged support for HR 676, the health care bill authored by John Conyers that is currently before the House of Representatives.
House Resolution 676 is the United States National Health Insurance Act (USNHI), also called the Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act. It provides for health coverage for all individuals residing in the United States. The coverage would include all necessary services, including primary care and prevention; inpatient, outpatient, and emergency care; prescription drugs; medical equipment; long term care; mental health services; dental services other than cosmetic; substance abuse treatment; chiropractic care; and basic vision care and correction. These benefits would be available anywhere in the United States without cost-sharing, deductibles, or co-payments.
No institution can be a participating provider in the proposed USNHI unless it is a public or not-for-profit institution. The conversion to a not-for-profit health care system would take place over a 15 year period through sale of U.S. Treasury Bonds. An overview of the program’s funding includes ways in which savings in health care expenditures will be achieved, such as by reducing paperwork and by bulk procurement of medications, as well as ways in which the program will be financed. The latter include using Federal government revenues allotted to existing health care programs, increasing income taxes for the top 5% of income earners, a modest payroll tax, and a small tax on stock and bond transactions. The program would be administrated on national, regional, and state levels.
The Ventura advisory group’s strong, indeed impassioned, endorsement of HR 676 stimulated comments addressing issues raised by those who propose compromise measures—including some of Mr. Daschle’s proposals in his recently published book, Critical: What We Can Do About the Health Care Crisis. One such proposal was that Americans who want to keep their employer-based insurance should be allowed to do so. In opposition to this proposal, mention was made of the relationship between the current economic melt-down, government bailouts, and the crippling burden that health care costs place on businesses small and large (including the collapsing auto manufacturers). The group’s clear consensus was that health care is not the business of business.
Another of the proposals in Daschle’s book is that all Americans should be required to buy health insurance (not just that all children should be insured as Obama suggests). In addition to calling into question the advisability–morally, ethically, or any other which way–of having the government force its citizens to make expenditures that could impose severe financial hardships, this is obviously a method of continuing the stranglehold of the HMOs on American health care (or the lack of it). The simple fact is that “for-profit health care” is a grotesque oxymoron the practice of which has plunged the richest nation on earth to the lowest levels of medical care for its citizens among not only developed countries but most undeveloped nations as well.
In response to various compromise measures that have been offered as ways to keep the fore mentioned for-profit health insurance corporations in business, members of the group cited various state programs. These have conspicuously failed. In the course of the discussion, the dreaded ‘s’ word was said right out loud, evoking the specter of ultimate evil: socialism. In the lamentable history of efforts to provide American citizens with decent health care, the phrase “socialized medicine” has been astonishingly effective in preventing any sane solution from being considered.
To quote Vice President Cheney, who, whatever his failings cannot be accused of mealy-mouthing around: “So?”
Among those reasons for which “We the people of the United States…do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America” is listed to “promote the general Welfare.” We do not have a for-profit military to “provide for the common defense.” We do not have for-profit police forces to “insure domestic tranquility.” We do not have a for-profit judicial system to “establish justice.” There is no possible justification, at least if we intend to continue trying to live under a rule of law based on the U.S. Constitution, for having for-profit health care to “promote the general Welfare.” This is the business of government as delineated in our Constitution.
The group which convened Wednesday in Ventura was unanimous in urging Secretary-to-be Daschle and President Elect Obama to do whatever is in their considerable power to see that HR 676 becomes the health care system in the United States. This is the rightful business of government, according to our Constitution, and 221 years later it is time for the Federal government to get around to it.
