THE SAD, SAD STATE OF U.S. HEALTH CARE
An Economics Lesson You Won't Get in School

An editorial from the New York Times courtesy of This Modern World:

The explanation for this abysmal record is one that politicians decline to discuss. The market functions wonderfully when we want to sell more cereals, cosmetics, cars, computers or any other consumer product. Unfortunately, it doesn't work in health care, where the goal should hardly be selling more heart bypass operations. Instead, the goal should be to prevent disease and illness. But the money is in the treatment - not prevention - so the market and good health care are at odds.

And

What's needed to control the costs and to provide basic health and hospitalization coverage for all Americans is an independent agency that would set national health care policy, collect medical fees, pay claims, reimburse doctors fairly and restrain runaway drug prices - a single-payer system that would eliminate the costly, inefficient bureaucracy generated by thousands of different plans. It's not such a radical idea; a single-payer system already exists for Medicare.

Such an agency would need to be free of politics and could be modeled on the Federal Reserve System, whose members are appointed to terms that do not coincide with the terms of either the president or the Senate. It could be financed through two taxes, a gross-receipts business tax and a flat tax, similar to Medicare, but on all individual income.

Under a single-payer system, never again would you be asked, when calling to make a medical appointment, "What type of insurance do you have?" Never again would doctors need bloated office staffs to track what is and is not covered under thousands of insurance plans. Never again would you have to worry about being bankrupted by a medical emergency. Never again would American business be saddled with the responsibility for providing health insurance.

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Health insurance was the biggest single factor that drove me into the hell of teaching public school. Millions of Americans, on a daily basis, make major life's decisions based on whether they can get adequate health care. Millions more are nervous, knowing that they just can't get health insurance one way or the other. This is no way to run a civilized society. It's pathetic in fact. Our nation certainly has the ability to provide quality health care to all citizens. The only thing stopping us is a weird, blind belief in "market forces" and how they're supposed to be good for everything. Alas, such a belief is like worshipping a volcano god who continually rains fire and brimstone down on his worshippers. I guess that's America in the 21st century: stupid and primitive.

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