We've got two bits on the op-ed page today related to health care, and that makes a nice jumping-off place for a little rant.
First, Tina Blake, billed as a "Yavapai County Community Member" (I think a hack of Yavapai County Community Health Services Member), urges readers to take a class and take control of their own health. In Prescott this is on offer Fridays at the YMCA.
Then there's the Talk of the Town column by Tom Bromley, credited as a retired NY state health care administrator, who sees the need for public health care, but can't quite see how we'll pay for it.
It's a fortuitous coincidence that these appear on the same page.
Bromley's thesis seems to depend largely on the idea that including 45 million uninsured Americans will incur enormous new costs, as if they're paying for it all out of pocket now and they'll pay nothing for it later. I think five seconds of thought about that pretty well dissolves it.
This is not to say that a "robust" public health-care system will cost nothing, of course. What so many of these commenters seem to miss or gloss over is that as a nation we're already paying for all of our health care, that cost grossly inflated by waste, excess bureaucracy, a strong bias for acute care over preventative care, and massive profit-taking. Reducing those costs is what makes these systems economically sensible, and it's also what scares an industry grown fat on the status quo.
What's a lot fuzzier is the huge potential for reducing costs simply by working to prevent health problems. This is practically impossible under our profit-motivated system, and that factor deserves a lot more scrutiny and thought from voters. The YCCHS program is a perfect example of what government is compelled to do that private industry simply won't. Imagine what's possible when reducing costs by making people healthier becomes a primary goal of the entire system.
Here's a smart, easy read today from the LA Times by a Canadian doctor comparing the US and Canadian systems and the lessons we could learn from Canada if we'd deign to take a look.
Lesley contributes an interesting list:
Countries with universal health coverage
Afghanistan*, Argentina, Austria, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iraq*, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Oman, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Ukraine and the United Kingdom
*Universal health coverage provided by United States war funding
PS: Props to Grundlecat in the comments for pointing out the headline malfunction on the LTE.
