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Why Comprehensive Universal Healthcare Is A Fucking Obvious Necessity
I have a hairline fracture in my rear molar that's three days old. It throbs
regularly and is a source of chronic pain. I still have it because Denti-Cal (the dental
branch of Medi-Cal) no longer covers crowns, the only solution to a hairline fracture.
I am often bewildered by the people who decry national universal healthcare coverage
as "socialist", and find that enough to deter others who might be inclined to support
it in Congress and in the White House. Meanwhile, the military indulges not just in
"socialist" health care, but also funded housing and provision of food and medicine at
carefully regulated and tax-free prices. (I know this, because I used to be a military
wife.) Have you heard anyone stating that the military should not have universal health
coverage? No. You know why? They'd probably be lynched. Universal health care
for civilians would not be socialist, anyways, since the government would not
own the hospitals or employ the medical personnel.
We're taxed and double taxed: federal income tax, then quite often a state tax,
licensing fees, and sales tax. The middle classes tend to pay the largest burden of tax (no
matter what Bush & Co. tell you), but even they are often without any health care due
to the insane premiums and occasionally discriminatory pre-enrollment physicals designed
to minimize insurance payouts rather than alert the customer to any medical condition
they might actually want to know about.
Universal health coverage is a good idea from several angles:
1) The Worker Productivity Angle.
Workers who suffer from chronic pain or treatable illnesses tend to lack morale, be less productive and resentful of white-collar management who would be perceived as doing less actual production work, but receiving more benefits. They can also cost more in eventual worker's compensation benefits if their problems distract
them from potentially dangerous processes, and sick days away from work which
are not productive. |
2) The Preventative Angle.
Its simple logic that seems to escape some people: delaying treatment complicates matters and costs more. A preventative, holistic approach to treatment rather than treatment for well-established conditions
is cheaper and causes less trauma. However, established medical practice focuses
more on treatment of symptom and curing established conditions. Why? Its more
lucrative. |
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3) The Epidemiological Angle.
People without healthcare tend to visit emergency rooms
only after the symptoms of whatever condition they have are too severe to
ignore. Often they have chronic, non-communicable diseases. However, the last
thing any epidemiologist wants is someone with an advanced and highly-contagious
illness stumbling into a room full of people whose immune systems are
compromised. This isn't even mentioning that if there was a biological terrorism
incident the emergency room personnel would most likely see the hardest hits
among the poor who delayed treatment until it was too late.
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4) The Economic Angle.
During the Cold War era, the military-industrial complex
expanded hugely; the conflict between the United States and Russia was often
escalated because of ties between government and industry, which benefited the
United States economy. Universal health care would be a large industrial group.
Imagine - instead of a war against drugs (an unachievable goal, as the past
twenty years illustrate obviously), why not a war against disease? Lucrative,
never-ending, and still capitalist. It would employ many and help with...
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5) The Diplomatic Angle.
If the United States became a source of medical technology
that saved lives around the world at reasonable cost, we would retrieve some of
the esteem squandered by a war-focused government, as well as contribute to...
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6) The Humanitarian Angle.
Should we sell medical technology and aid with disease
prevention and eradication, the humanitarian image of the US might be restored.
Goodwill, despite being out of favor among neoconservatives that forget that the
US is not the only country on earth with a military, is something the US needs
to consider. Universalized health care coverage would also mean that the
37,000,000 people who earn less than $14,343 USD a year1
would be able to maintain their health. The poor should not be
punished for being poor, since poverty is not a crime.
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7) The Competitive Angle.
Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, the
United Kingdom, and Japan are all examples of first-world
countries with successful universal health care systems. As a
first-world nation with immense resources, the United States has
no compelling reason not to care adequately for all of its
population, not just the ones who can afford corporate health's
premiums.
Ironically, Iraq had socialized coverage
under Saddam Hussein - though no medicine, due to US sanctions.
Cuba also has a socialized health-care system, with mixed
results. (Since the US would not have socialized health-care,
but single-payer, it would have a higher quality of care.)
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People often argue that the
indigent cannot be turned away from emergency room services; however,
doctors who find out that their patients have no insurance and might not
be able to afford care will often prescribe ludicrously inappropriate
treatments. There is no requirement for *valid* care - only that there
is some treatment prescribed. This is not to mention that hospitals
often charge a lower fee to insurance companies than the uninsured.2
Because emergency room services are more
expensive to begin with, insured individuals who can afford the service
pay less than an indigent individual who cannot.
Hospitals are in dire
straits at the moment. According to the Society for Academic Emergency
Medicine:
"The unprecedented number of
uninsured, gate-keeping by managed care organizations, bed
reductions and hospital closures, nursing shortages, and fierce cost
reductions by hospitals have placed overwhelming stresses on many of
our emergency departments. Emergency physicians across the country
are familiar with the results: sustained (and in some cases,
unprecedented) increases in ED visits, provision of more
uncompensated and undercompensated care, growing shortages of acute
and critical hospital beds for ED patients, planned or forced
understaffing of nurses and housestaff, inadequate specialty back-up
coverage for ED patients, and shrinking referral capacity for both
primary and specialty follow-up care. These conditions threaten the
operational and financial viability of our emergency departments,
and compromise our ability to deliver high quality care to all of
our patients."3
Universal,
comprehensive health-care coverage would help ease the current pressures
on doctors and hospital care.
The Hippocratic Oath
states:
"You do solemnly swear, each by
whatever he or she holds most sacred... That into whatsoever house
you shall enter, it shall be for the good of the sick to the utmost
of your power, your holding yourselves far aloof from wrong, from
corruption, from the tempting of others to vice."4
There's more to it,
of course, but corporate demands render that portion of the Oath false.
Comprehensive, universalized health care for all people in the United
States will allow doctors to follow their mandate to heal, rather than
to follow the mandate to profit.
Rowan
Crisp
September
19th, 2003.
1
Manna
Food Bank
2
Alternet,
July 23rd 2003 - Why Hospitals Overcharge the Uninsured
3
Society
for Academic Emergency Medicine, May 9th 2001
4
The
Hippocratic Oath |