4 days ago
U.S. could have best health care. But not if profit-driven private sector keeps control.
Kay Tillow, with Kentuckians for Single Payer Health Care, led a rally against Medicare Advantage plans Oct. 11, 2023 outside the Humana headquarters in Louisville. (Photo by Deborah Yetter)
Ours is the only nation in the industrialized world that has turned health care over to the private sector, subjecting all of us to life expectancy five years below the norm in other wealthy countries.
More of our babies die in the first year of life and more of our moms die in childbirth than in any other industrialized country.
We spend twice as much per person on health care in the United States as peer countries, yet we have the highest rates of death for conditions that are treatable.
On the congressional agenda are cuts to Medicaid of more than $600 billion over 10 years. Hundreds of thousands Kentuckians are among those in the line of fire. The results will be deadly. Administration officials are determined to offset the tax cuts that will benefit the wealthiest even though it means loss of health care for millions of Americans.
People are in the streets to stop the catastrophic damage to Medicaid.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that 10.3 million people would lose their Medicaid coverage by 2034 under the GOP bill. Med Pac, the independent agency that advises Congress, predicts the projected cuts will throw 8 million onto the uninsured rolls.
Med Pac has also informed Congress that the privatized Medicare plans, misnamed Medicare Advantage, that were supposed to save money are instead costing us $84 billion a year more than if those patients were in traditional Medicare.
So this looks like an easy fix. Leave Medicaid alone. Cut out the Medicare Advantage plans, placing those patients onto the better coverage of traditional Medicare, saving more than enough money over 10 years than is needed to offset the tax cuts. Problem solved!
But in health care things are seldom simple. The Medicare Advantage patients who gained access to traditional Medicare would find themselves faced with unaffordable monthly premiums for the prescription drugs and supplemental coverage they would need. The Medicaid patients who were rescued from the firing squad will continue to suffer at the hands of the private Medicaid managed care companies that regularly deny 12% of claims, a rate double the awful rate in Medicare Advantage.
Medicaid patients would still have a hard time finding specialists. Their rural hospitals would continue to close as the Medicaid payments are insufficient to maintain the necessary infrastructure. Billions of the public funds provided for Medicaid patients would be siphoned into the coffers of the insurance companies as care, by law, is secondary to profit, in this privatized Medicaid system.
Those fortunate enough to have health care through their employers will continue to find the premiums, deductibles and co-pays beyond their means. The average family plan is now over $25,000 a year. The 15 years since the passage of health care reform have left 100 million of us in medical debt in what the Commonwealth Fund accurately calls a failing health care system.
Over 130 national and local organizations have called for a national day of action on Sat., May 31, to 'Demand Health Not Profit: Put Single Payer on the Nation's Agenda.'
On that day in 25 cities from Detroit to Houston and Seattle to Charlotte, people will gather to advocate against cuts in an already failing system and in favor of enhanced Medicare for all.
The protesters are demanding passage of a publicly financed, national single-payer program that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone.
In Kentucky, the Rally for Health Not Profit will be at noon Saturday at the Mazzoli Federal Building in Louisville. The people there will be fighting for all of those on the firing lines and insisting that, this time around, we can remove the profits from health care and enact a plan that cares for all of us.
SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
