The following is a reader take by Malinda Markowitz.
If you wonder why Republican campaign strategists are worried about their party’s vulnerability on health care, consider the story of Leslie Elder of West Palm Beach, Fl..
“We had major medical health insurance, and than I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1987. After a radical mastectomy, I was again diagnosed with breast cancer and another radical mastectomy in 1992. Left with large unpaid balances and triple the premiums we were forced to drop the insurance in 2003,” Leslie wrote in a recent message to the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.
“In 2005 I was diagnosed with kidney cancer resulting in the removal of one completely and part of the other. I had the help of a family member and paid almost $70,000 for the two surgeries.”
“The horror now is that I won’t go back for check ups, for fear of hearing those words again ‘you have cancer, and you have no coverage’. I still work so I cannot get Medicare, and the insurance is unaffordable.”
Sadly, Leslie and her family are not alone. A report cited in the Wall Street Journal June 26 found that 20 percent of Americans said they’d put off medical treatment in the preceding year, nearly 70 percent of them due to cost.
She may also be among those identified by a July NPR/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard School of Public Health survey of the battleground states, Florida and Ohio.
That survey found 28 percent of Floridians and one-fourth of Ohioans say they or a family member had problems paying medical bills the past year. Among that group, more than half self-ration care — delaying or foregoing needed medical treatment or dental care, not filling prescriptions, cutting pills in half or skipping doses.
What makes the health care crisis worse is how it compounds the overall economic plight for American families today. The Kaiser Health Tracking Poll in June recorded that six in 10 adults cite a “serious” financial problem, led by gas prices, low paying jobs, and paying for health care.
It has not escaped many voters that their health and financial ship of state has hit rough waters under the Bush administration. The Journal report, for example, noted relative “stability” in patient access to care from 1997 to 2003 and a massive leap in insecurity since. During that same period, the number of uninsured and underinsured Americans, insurance premiums, and drug prices, have all skyrocketed.
Against this backdrop, Sen. John McCain’s health plan closely resembles the policies of the present administration. He’s proposing tax credits of $2,500 for individuals and $5,000 for families to help more people buy insurance.
But that’s less than half the current average premium costs. And, McCain offers nothing to control the costs of those skyrocketing premiums except a dubious reliance on competition in an insurance industry that does not compete on quality or access, but by cutting costs mainly through denying care or dumping people when they get sick.
McCain wants to further deregulate an already poorly regulated industry, and eliminate employers’ health insurance tax deduction, a worrisome incentive for employers to stop offering health coverage. The inevitable result — more costs and health risks shifted on to families like Leslie’s.
By contrast, Sen. Barack Obama’s health plan would provide subsidies for those who can’t afford the current pricy plans, and take a tougher stand against insurance and drug company practices. He wants to permit Americans to buy cheaper medications from other countries, repeal the Bush administration ban on the government using its bulk purchasing power to negotiate lower prices from drug companies, and prohibit insurers from denying coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.
Though a step well beyond the McCain plan and the dismal indifference of the Bush years, the Obama plan does not go far enough either. It still leaves too much control over our health in the hands of the insurance giants.
Leslie has another idea, “We need HR 676.” That’s the bill that would essentially improve Medicare and extend it to all Americans.
The need could not be greater. A Commonwealth Fund study July 17 found that U.S. has plunged to last among major industrial nations in preventing deaths through timely and effective medical care even though we spends more than twice as much per person on healthcare.
What’s the central difference? All those other countries have a national healthcare system (like our VA healthcare system) or a single payer system (like Medicare), and they don’t have insurance companies determining when or if you should receive care.
HR 676 has more co-sponsors than any health reform in Congress and millions of Americans who know it is the most effective solution to our health care crisis. We need a more humane health care system and a sharp break from the abysmal policies of the present. Families like Leslie’s and the rest of us deserve nothing less.
Malinda Markowitz, RN is co-president of the National Nurses Organizing Committee/California Nurses Association.
