This letter was written as a reponse to the "Bee-Hive" a magazine created by the Maple Ridge Highschool students. They wrote several articles on health care reform.

I want to congratulate you on the newest "Beehive", which starts off the school year on solid footing.

I am proud to send my son to a school where students think and write about healthcare reform, in a time when most other teenagers are twittering about Miley Cyrus. All the same, I feel compelled to point out that your articles on healthcare perpetuate several unfortunate myths, and since one of the goals of an education is to make us think, I'm going to weigh in with a few opposing positions.

First, the suggestion that government-run healthcare is wasteful can be answered by looking at Medicare - the national healthcare program we already have. Medicare has been around for more than forty years, since 1965, and while it has plenty of fat to trim, it remains one of the most efficient programs around. Whereas private insurance companies like MetLife and Aetna spend 33 cents of each dollar on administration, Medicare spends 4 - less than an eighth as much. The only problem with Medicare is that it is limited to citizens over 65, which leaves us younger folk out in the cold.

Second, there is the question of how we can possibly afford to expand such a program, given the current state of our economy. That is a good question, and one we should all worry about. But in the end, cost is a matter of priority. How can the Congress fuss over $800 billion after it has doled out trillions for ruinous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? Why the calls for fiscal restraint now, after previous administrations wasted billions on futuristic and fantastical programs such as the failed Star Wars missile shield? How can we afford to subsidize hog farms and car manufacturers and even the oil industry, but not nursing homes and hospitals?

If we can pay $800, 000 for a Tomahawk missile - money that evaporates on impact - then we can surely afford immunizations for our children and blood pressure pills for our elderly. We have exploded 140 Tomahawks in Afghanistan alone, money which is gone forever - and which has not enhanced our national security, but bought us more enemies. Why not invest these dollars at home, in our schools and hospitals, where they will benefit the taxpayers who earned them?

It all boils down to a very un-American question: Who is my brother's keeper? In a society obsessed with personal advancement and private gain, it's never going to be easy to pass legislation that benefits people who are poor, sick, or down on their luck. And yet if we call ourselves Christians, that is exactly what we are called to do.

Many people argue that this is the job of the church, not the state, and while I would personally agree, the fact is that for the last hundred years, our churches have done a lousy job of caring for the sick and the poor. That's why government has had to step in, and that's why we have programs to protect the weakest members of society.

Take a 64-year old widow who is diagnosed with cancer and who is out of work, but too young to qualify for Medicare. Or a five-year-old child who falls off his bike and breaks his arm but cannot get seen by the local orthopedic group because they don't accept his parents' health plan. Do you really mean to say that these people should "get off their butts" and get to work?

Even from a selfish perspective, we all suffer when hospitals close due to lack of funding; when emergency rooms are so understaffed that people die in the waiting room; when women in labor have to drive four hours because all the obstetricians have been driven out of state by soaring malpractice rates.

I truly believe that in our lifetime, we will see women in labor walking up our drive, begging for help; cripples and beggars lining Routes 32 and 213; dead bodies on the sidewalks of Kingston and Newburgh and Poughkeepsie. Such grim sights are already commonplace in Africa and South America, but is this the America we want for our children and ourselves?

No, indeed: universal healthcare is not a right; it is a responsibility!

Respectfully,

Reuben Zimmerman

 

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Your Turn. Tell us what you thought about this article:

Responses

Another point: the $400,000,000,000 (Yes! $400 BILLION) we would save EVERY YEAR by eliminating the high-profit-making private health insurance industry would free up enough dollars to pay for anything and everything - really! It would even pay for the care of all illegal immigrants, but that's another hot-button subject that doesn't need to add to the burden of this present struggle!

We clearly need single-payer, Medicare-for-All, and the only reason Congress and the White House aren't going to go for it, apparently, is that it would shut down the Golden Goose (hospital corporations, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the private health insurance industry, all of which pay fatter dividends [profits] than any other business!) - which provides enormous contributions to the re-election campaigns of our Senators and Congressmen!

Yes indeed, we need universal healthcare; is not a right; it is a responsibility!

S. Milton Zimmerman, M.D. (I'm Reuben's father, but that's really beside the point today!)

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The people who benefit most from private insurance companies are the private insurance companies themselves, because their purpose is to make money, NOT to fund health care. For example, several years ago, as a healthy 24 year old, I purchased one year's worth of health insurance. I had no problem whatsoever getting health insurance, because I have no medical problems. The cost was $600 yearly. In addition, there was deductible of several thousand dollars, meaning I would have to pay for the first several thousand dollars of my health care out of my pocket before the insurance company would pay anything whatsoever. During that year I spent $20 (out of my own pocket) on medications, and the insurance company earned $600 and did nothing whatsoever for me. I was a perfect customer. On the other hand, if I had told the insurance company I had uncontrolled type I diabetes, getting health insurance would have been a completely different matter.

Why? Because it would not be profitable for the health insurance company to pick me up. Thus, the more you need health care, the harder it is to get it. So what's the answer to all this? I have no idea, but one thing I am sure of is that the public needs an option other than health insurance provided by for-profit corporations. Perhaps a barter system is the answer. I sew up your hand, you give me a ham. I do a well-child exam on your kid, you shingle my roof. How does that sound? No ICD-9 codes. No prior authorization. We could send our entire billing department to nursing school. Physicians from insurance companies could actually practice medicine themselves instead of spending time punishing those physicians who do deliver good care. How does that sound?

Jacob Hofer
Medical Student
Morgantown, WV

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Makes sense to me.

Jane H Beattie
Ketchum ID

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What is the greatest natural resource any nation has? It is the nation's people, not minerals or petroleum. Therefore, it is in the nation's patriotic interest to have healthy and educated people, people who have vitality and the means to solve problems facing the nation. It is also in the nation's interest to promote community welfare and values that bind society together. This would reflect the truth of human interdependence. "United we stand, divided we fall."

The basic principle of insurance is that the larger the group of people insured, the lower the percentage of claims at any one time. This makes lower premiums (the monthly costs of insurance) possible. Therefore, the total population is the most efficient and inexpensive group.

The actual health care workers should receive an income that reflects the value of their service. Is it right, is it moral, is it Christian for people who provide no service to make a profit out of another person's sickness and misfortune? Think of the parable of "The Good Samaritan."

Yes, health care is our personal and community responsibility. 

Bill Button
Farmington, PA

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My son Slammed the car door on his finger.  It was 9pm Friday night and our family doctor told me to take him to the emergency room (copay $50.00)  The Finger was broken (as found on an xray and they treated it like a "compound fracture" -one where the bone is sticking out - since there was an open wound over the fracture.  With a follow up doctors visit, the total cost was just below $500.00.  My premiums for the past year were well over the amount I had been covered and my employers fees almost doubled that, but the insurance company wanted to sue my car insurance company since my car was liable for the injury to my son and the car insurance covered liability injuries.

I was shocked because they already had collected more than twice what I claimed on my policy, and still wanted to squirm out of paying it.

I say all this to reinforce the point that insurance for profit will never be effective or economically sound.  Like others have said, much of the waste in our country could be eliminated and the economy stimulated by investing in people, healthcare, education, and infrastructure, and our national security could be strengthened by investing in the same for less fortunate countries instead of the military.   Instead we are nickled and dimed to death with issues like insurance premiums to fatten the quarterly return statements of large corporations that do nothing to promote growth other than suck money from citizens to fatten their own paychecks. 

David Burleson
Hudson Valley NY

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I like Mr. Zimmerman's final words.  Health care is indeed a responsibility, not a right.  It is a responsibility of family members, of church families, of cities and towns, of states and even of the federal government.  It is also a responsibility each of us owes to himself.

Medicare can spend so little on "administration" in part because it does very little fraud-detection (thus accounting for the huge estimates of fraud), because it does not have to collect premiums (since that's done by the IRS) and since it simply pays a fee for services at a set rate instead of creatively seeking new treatments and cheaper alternatives.  All those "administrative costs" of private insurers are moneys well spent that Medicare takes advantage of.  Who will do them when everyone is on Medicare?

He talks about doctors not taking patients with certain kinds of health care, yet the most common group refused are those on government insurance now (Medicaid & Medicare.)  That's because they don't pay enough to keep doctors interested in serving them.  In fact, those with private insurance and, especially, those without any insurance who pay full price, are carrying the load for the underpaying Medicare and Medicaid patients. 

If underfunded hospitals and understaffing of doctors is Mr. Zimmerman's concern, then he doesn't want government-funded health care which, as always, will be subject to political rather than clinical judgments and will, with low rates and intrusive rules drive doctors out of the profession altogether. 

Wish as we may, the government will still find ways to fund wars and worthlessness.  If we put every citizen's health care in the same budget as other government spending, we will all be on the government chopping block.

Douglas Taylor-Weiss
Auburn, N.Y.