AUSTIN, Texas -- Have you noticed that the health-care system is
not working? In fact, it's falling apart. And the most curious thing about
that is how few of the people for whom the system still works -- and they're
the ones who make the decisions --- are aware of it.
It's like the old story about frogs and hot water. If you drop a
frog into boiling water, it will leap to get out, but if you drop a frog in
cool water and then gradually heat it up, the beast doesn't notice. Or so
they say. Another factor is the now-constant cognitive dissonance we have in
this country as a result of the ever-widening gap between most people and
the people who run things. If you have health insurance, the system is a
pain in the behind but it works. If you don't have health insurance, you are
flat out of luck. And in case you hadn't noticed, more and more employers
are deciding not to offer health insurance, or using "temporary" workers or
out-sourcing various tasks so they won't have to cover the workers.
If you don't have health insurance, the system is an insane
nightmare. A new book by Dr. Rudolph Mueller, "As Sick As It Gets: The
Shocking Reality of America's' Healthcare" lays out the problems as well as
any I've read. But the book is just one more grain of sand in the beaches of
evidence we already have that the system is breaking up.
At South by Southwest, the Austin music festival, a panel on
health care for musicians -- who are largely uninsured -- produced this
nugget: Did you know there are more than 1,000 concerts given every week by
musicians for other musicians to raise enough money for an operation or
medical treatment of some kind? It's a beautiful tradition, but it doesn't
work. All the generosity of all the musicians in the country -- and so many
of them are endlessly generous with their time and talent -- doesn't begin
to cover the cost of medical treatment for even a few.
As they say in bridge circles, let's review the play. Ten years
ago, we knew the system was a mess and Bill Clinton got elected in large
part by promising to do something about it. Hillary Clinton got the
assignment and conventional wisdom in the political world is that she blew
it. She did make political mistakes in her approach, but the far more
important reason the attempt at reform failed is that the insurance industry
spent $10 million to defeat the bill. Remember Harry and Louise?
Since then, the politicians have been afraid to try reform. The
smartest of them, including Bill Clinton and Sen. Ted Kennedy, have been
trying to move the ball incrementally -- tinkering with Medicare and
Medicaid, starting a program to insure poor children. But the system is
falling apart faster than they can move to fix it. A Patients' Bill of
Rights is not the answer. It won't provide health insurance for a single
additional individual.
The most maddening thing about the sheer stupidity of America's
health care system is that the far better alternative is perfectly clear.
Every other industrialized nation manages to do this better than we do. The
answer is universal health insurance, a single-payer system. Every time we
start to get serious about reform, the right wing starts screaming,
"Socialized medicine, socialized medicine." And then we're all supposed to
run, screaming with horror. But if you want to see horror in action, try the
emergency room of any large public hospital in this country. And for a truly
hilarious experience, try to get emergency medical help on Christmas Eve.
Look, this should not be a for-profit system. We need to phase
out all for-profit or investor-owned provider and insurance organizations.
Mueller suggests a one-time fair buyout of all such organizations. The good
news is that doctors are no longer impeding serious reform -- in fact,
doctors are having such a hard time under the current system, they've been
radicalized on the subject and can now be counted on to help with reform.
Conservatives reflexively start moaning about the cost of a
"big, new government program." Actually, what's costly is the system we have
now. Americans already spend 58 percent more than the weighted average of
similar nations for health care.
"It is a system wasteful beyond belief and manipulated by a
lobby focused on providing the highest profits for the their self-interest
and investors, and mammoth cash flows to companies that should not exist or
not be involved in health care. The system is also paying for an extremely
large number of sick people who would not be sick under any decent universal
health care system," writes Mueller.
Sitting around deploring the current system will not fix it --
there are citizen action groups all over the country working on this
problem. It is easy to find them and get involved. You don't have to be on
the Internet; the phone book works fine. We can't wait for the political
system to get round to doing something about this: We need to help ourselves
now.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other
Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web
page at
www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2002 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
