Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning
“You must be the change you wish to see in the world.” – Mahatma Gandhi
In “ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription” I noted that it was virtually impossible to mount an honest defense of the current U.S. health care system. Doing so would amount to suggesting that the obscene wealth of a few health care insurance company CEOs and their Wall Street investors has a greater social value than the lives of 18,000 of our fellow citizens whom the current system annually sentences to death simply because they are too poor to purchase insurance coverage.
Today, as I mulled over the legislative obscenity that Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT) and a former vice president of WellPoint spent months preparing — an insurance carrier wish-list that contains no public option, no means for controlling costs or abuse; a measure that does not merely protect but expands the already obscene wealth of the few by mandating that every citizen purchase insurance, with massive subsidies flowing into carrier coffers — I learned that I was wrong…
The 18,000 figure I relied upon was based on a now outdated 2002 study performed by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine. Today, there is a new Harvard University study which has been released by the American Journal of Public Health. Our corrupt and dysfunctional system does not sentence a mere 18,000 Americans to death each year because they can’t afford coverage. Our system kills close to 45,000 each year due to lack of coverage — 45,000 in addition to the still uncounted numbers who die when carriers refuse to authorize vital procedures.
To fully appreciate the enormity of that number, consider: Direct U.S. military involvement in Vietnam commenced when President Kennedy sent several thousand advisers in 1963. It ended twelve (12) years later when Saigon fell in 1975. During that twelve year span a total of 58,000 American service personnel lost their lives.
At current rates, 540,000 Americans will die over the next 12 years simply because they can’t afford insurance.
I’d ask, “enough of a trigger, Mr. President?” But the truth is, as forcefully noted by Dr. Stephanie Woolhandler, a Harvard University Professor involved in the latest study, even the so-called “public option” would not come close to resolving the crisis in American health care. Single-payer (Medicare for All) is the only solution.
Where I depart from Dr. Woolhandler is in her faith that a large enough number of e-mails and calls can pressure Congress to do the right thing.
At this point the democracy deficit is so great that there appears to be only two ways the super majority of Americans who desire a single-payer system may be able to effectuate meaningful change. One would be a massive civil disobedience campaign at levels used by Ghandi to bring the British empire to its knees, perhaps on the scale of a national general strike. The other, also entailing direct, non-violent action, would be for progressives both inside and outside the Democratic Party to come together to jointly target each corporate sell out in Congress for replacement.
No doubt, the enormity of either approach is daunting, but, as Howard Zinn observed in A Power Governments Cannot Suppress:
I would venture that the Founding Fathers of this nation would find the notion of a government willing to sacrifice the lives of so many to secure the wealth of so few as contrary to the very principles upon which they fought the American Revolution.
The Declaration of Independence does not merely describe rights to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” as “inalienable,” but adds:
As daunting as the task may be, we owe it to those who came before us and to our posterity to finally say, enough! We, the people, must find a way break corporate America’s current stranglehold over the legislative process. Our political elites must come to realize that we will neither support nor obey a leadership that would sacrifice our very lives to satisfy the greed of the privileged few. If they will not, they must step aside. Such is the guiding principles of our American democracy.
The 9/18/09 ‘Democracy Now!’ interview of Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, professor of medicine at Harvard University and a co-founder of Physicians for a National Health Program, follows below…
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Ernest A. Canning has been an active member of the California state bar since 1977. Mr. Canning has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science as well as a juris doctor. He is also a Vietnam vet (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968).
The Obama Health Care reform is a complete insult to any Progressive Americans. It plans to reshape health care under the management of the same health insurance corporations who ruined it in the first place!
We are working to put pressure on Congress directly with our votes to pass single payer health care (medicare for all). You can join our Health bloc here:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Health_Bloc.php
We also set up a Reform bloc to stop the corruption in Washington here:
http://www.votingbloc.org/Reform_Bloc.php
Great to find Brad Blog. Listed you on Mullin’s World blog list.
Keep up the good work.
A-1, Ernest.
Is there any way to start at the local government level? Community Health Insurance perhaps?
It was my understanding that We are fighting for the “Public Option” because it was the best We could do. Is the “Medicare for all” still something We can push for?
Lora: I addressed the local approach in “Small Victory for Long-Term Single-Payer Strategy” after Dennis Kucinich successful amendment in committee to HR 3200, the House “public option” legislation.
The answers to Don Knuttel’s question can be found first in “Single-Payer: From Off-the-Table to On-the-Floor” wherein a reported on Nancy Pelosi’s agreement to permit a floor vote on an amendment offered by Anthony Weiner (D-NY) that would replace HR 3200 with HR 676 Single-Payer.
As to whether we should accept an elite claim, made time and again, that “single-payer” is not “politically feasible,” please see my discussion at the end of “ObamaCare: Right Diagnosis, Wrong Prescription.”
About 10 AM, Saturday of Labour Day weekend, I fell down on an elevated tee on the golf course. My lower leg went under me and I thought I did something real bad.
With help, I iced my knee and then limped to the car and drive to emerg at the local hospital. I was attended to within 1/2 hour and the knee was x-rayed. It was felt that I possably severed a tenden in the knee area.
Calls were made in the City and a bed was available for possible surgery.
My wife drove me to a major hospital an hour away. More x-rays were taken and I was given a bed in a room with 3 women who were recovering from knee replacements the day before.
It was decided about 7 Pm that night that the ‘big guy’ (from an international known sports clinic) did not have to come in for the surgery on the knee as the x-rays and my able to stand on the leg would indicate a tear only. This was an assesment from 2 Doctors on the floor.
I stayed over night and was attended by the same Doctors the next day. I received physio instruction and told to use a cane for a while.
My wife drove me home after we had some lunch at a nearby restaruant.
I wonder what my total billing would be.
$500?
$5,000?
$15,000?
$25,000?
$50,000?
I don’t know. I did not get a bill – I will not get a bill!
The service for this, on a long weekend, is priceless!
By the bye, I did get a billing from the hospital of $22 for the cane I get to keep.
When you are lying in a hospital bed in Ontario, you do have some worries but getting a medical bill is not one of them.
Jim
J Mulhern: I truly appreciate your comment regarding your treatment in Ontario, Canada.
A little over a week ago, my wife had to undergo surgery for a huge (more than 4 inch in diameter) ovarian tumor. She was in the hospital (Thousand Oaks, CA) a total of three days. The bill was over $62,000.
We are now fighting with the carrier to whom we have been paying premiums for more than 30 years over whether she really needed to be hospitalized — this despite the fact she had been given a spinal as well as a general anesthetic and although we couldn’t know until after the operation whether the tumor was cancerous. (Fortunately it was benign).
My wife had to lay out $5,000 to the hospital up front even though we had the best (PPO) private insurance available in the U.S.
While I anticipate forcing the carrier to pay, I shutter to think what would have happened to a couple not as financially secure as we are who would not have had $5,000 to pay simply to enter a hospital.
I’ve been saying this for ages, but I’ll say it again now. I think the Republican Party and the supporters of the Private Health Insurance industry have been responsible for more death and suffering of American citizens than Alqueida could ever hope to achieve. Bin Laden must be cracking one off when he hears about selfish priviledged Americans berating The President for attempting to IMPROVE the healthcare provisions for the vulnerable!