On Healthcare Reform & Civil Rights History

A lot is being made about the Democrats plan for health-care reform. One minute it looks like they have their filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, which means they can push through whatever they want. The next minute, they lose Kennedy's seat, and everyone says healthcare is dead. The next minute, everyone starts talking about reconciliation as a way to only need 51 votes in the Senate to get the bill. Then, you have Republicans calling reconciliation a "back-room deal" even though they used those tactics when GWB was in office.

It's apparent that something needs to change with healthcare. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that the bill needs to have this or that. I haven't looked at all the numbers. And most people haven't. So, it annoys me when people cling to their Glenn Becks of the world and just repeat what they say (ex: public option is bad), when they haven't performed the analysis themselves. I'm not saying the public option is good either. I'm saying I DON'T KNOW. Is that such a novel concept?

Now, people are looking at the polls and saying that less than 50% of people are in favor of the health plan. These are the same citizens that hated the stimulus, but loved all the individual tax breaks and incentives that it created.

However, the biggest thing I think about is, who cares about public opinion? Obviously it is an election year and the Democrats are nervous about losing their seats, but sometimes on an issue you have to go above public opinion. Do you think when the Supreme Court made its decision on Brown v. Board of Education that >50% of citizens agreed with it? Hell no. It took 10 YEARS for the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to finally become law. Why did it take so long?

By the early 1960s, the nation s congressional history contributed to growing legislative pressures for a comprehensive civil rights law. Although political pressures prevented President John F. Kennedy's administration from proposing legislation to Congress in 1961 and 1962, the President took steps to ensure minority rights in voting, employment, housing, transportation, and education by executive action. (link)

Political pressure = motherfuckers in Congress from the South + public opinion. That means that the public didn't want black people to have their Civil Rights, because if politicians would have voted for it in 1954, then would have lost votes in the subsequent election. It wasn't until the early 1960s that public opinion changed somewhat and allowed the legislation to go through.

The National Opinion Research Center discovered this change of attitude in a sample survey of northern whites in 1963. The Center determined that the number who approved neighborhood integration had risen 30% in twenty years, to 72% in 1963. The proportion favoring school integration had risen even more impressively to 75%. (link)

How does this all tie together? All I'm saying is that someone needs to grow some balls in Congress and pass something that going to rein in costs and create the incentives for lower-cost healthcare. I'm not saying that I know what the solution is, but the alternative (doing nothing) doesn't look too promising either.

On Universal Healthcare

One topic that has been on my mind recently is Universal Healthcare in the United States.

The United States, the most wealthy country in the world, is the only industrialized nation that does not have a universal health care system. Well, why not?

The philosophical side of the issue brings up some interesting points. If you as a person can rationalize paying for the public school system, then I don't understand how you could not rationalize universal health care. Is it fair to tell kids that the income of their parents is going to drive whether or not they get a decent education? Of course not. Here's the thing, we have a public school system that is free because many people would not be able to pay for it otherwise. If you don't like the public schools, then you are free to pay for the private school of your choice.

Interestingly enough, the public school system wasn't originally developed because everyone felt that kids had the right to learn -- they wanted a public school system so there would be smart enough people to have jobs in our society. If there were too many ignorant people, then society could not advance.

Coming back to universal healthcare, the argument for it follows a similar pattern. There are a lot of people who can't pay for healthcare in our country. Instead of getting the care that they need, people are forced to avoid treatment until they have a big crisis in their health. Maybe their employer doesn't offer an affordable healthcare plan. Maybe the insurance companies have denied their applications for coverage. Maybe they don't have enough money.

If this is the situation, then how can we solve it?

I think everyone should have a right to universal healthcare. Maybe you don't get 100% of the costs paid. In England, it costs around 10 US dollars for any prescription that you want. That is obviously a lot more afforable than the drug costs here in the United States. But what is cost for the people at large?

One of the big things that people who are against universal healthcare bring up is the idea that if there is universal healthcare, costs are going to spiral out of control and it is going to be a big burden on everyone. My answer to that is look at every other industralzied nation in the world. I don't see them spiraling out of control. But then they come back and say, "well why should I have to pay for people to smoke and get get sick and do all these other things that don't affect me." Here's the thing -- you're ALREADY DOING THAT. It's called insurance. You're paying for the healthcare costs of all the other smokers that are on your same insurance plan. You're paying for people who go to the doctor all the time for no reason. You're paying for the fat people who won't lose weight and have lifestyle diseases. Conceptually, you're already paying for all this, so why is universal healthcare any different?

My big theory is that universal healthcare will make costs go DOWN. In the United States, we don't focus on preventing illness. We focus on trying to get you better once you're already sick. But that's wrong way of approaching it. Why not focus on helping people living healthy lives from get-go? We need to focus on preventing illness. Not curing it once it's already too late. Universal healthcare removes some of the barriers that people have to obtaining the treatment that they need. You don't have to worry about your co-pays, are you in the network or out of the network, or whether you've met your deductible. And for people who don't have health insurance, they can finally get the correct treatment that they previously had to forego. So by preventing illness instead of treating illness, healthcare costs will inevitably go down.

I also found some other reasons why people are against it.

1. Patients aren't likely to curb their drug costs and doctor visits if health care is free; thus, total costs will be several times what they are now.
2. Healthy people who take care of themselves will have to pay for the burden of those who smoke, are obese, etc.
3. A long, painful transition will have to take place involving lost insurance industry jobs, business closures, and new patient record creation.
4. Malpractice lawsuit costs, which are already sky-high, could further explode since universal care may expose the government to legal liability, and the possibility to sue someone with deep pockets usually invites more lawsuits.
5. "Free" health care isn't really free since we must pay for it with taxes; expenses for health care would have to be paid for with higher taxes or spending cuts in other areas such as defense, education, etc.

My responses:
1. Charge people a small, but afforable fee (like England) for prescription drugs. Focus on preventing illness and people won't need as many drugs.
2. If you have insurance, you're already paying for other people to be obese.
3. Fuck the insurance companies. They only thing they are good for is denying care from people. They reject people who apply to their plans for dubious reasons. In effect, you send them your money from your paycheck and then have to yell and scream to get the real care you need.
4. Put a cap on damages for malpractice lawsuits based on the injures.
5. Taxes are inevitable. For people who already have insurance, it is unknown how much the cost of insurance premiums that they currently pay will compare with the potential increase in taxes.

I think universal healthcare is imporant. So, if you agree that it is important to have a public school system, give me one good argument against universal healthcare.