So... What's this here single-payer health care thing all about anyway?
By Warren Pease
"I’m going to tell you something – we have fabulous health care in America, just so you know. I think it’s very important – before people start griping about the health care system here – and of course there’s always grounds for complaint – just to compare it with other systems around the world." –- George W. Bush, December 17, 2007, eruditely discussing his own single-payer coverage, courtesy of the US taxpayer.
So… What's this here single-payer health care thing all about anyway?
But first, a moment of silence
A teenaged girl died a couple of weeks ago because Cigna HealthCare, a for-profit medical insurance provider, did exactly what it's compelled to do by law: it chose to maximize its profits by refusing to pay for a liver transplant for 17-year-old Nataline Sarkisyan, whose doctors warned that she would certainly die without the organ replacement.
And they were correct. She did in fact die, just hours after Cigna relented and agreed to cover the costs of the procedure after all. This, too, was a move intended to maximize profits, since the terrible PR that news of its denial of coverage generated could have affected Cigna's bottom line as well, as could damages awarded as the result of a wrongful death suit. So it wasn't a rekindling of the human spirit on Cigna's part that caused the company to reverse its position; that was the result of a serious internal disaster management campaign, run by corporate lawyers and high-level spin-meisters, designed to reduce the impact on Cigna's image and minimize the company's financial exposure.
By law, the only obligation of a publicly owned, for-profit US corporation is maximizing return for its shareholders. That's it. Nothing about good corporate citizenship, the public good, saving lives or anything else that isn't related to jacking up the price per share and maintaining a reasonable P/E ratio.
If Cigna had been operating outside the rules, perhaps we could simply discipline that one company, levy stiff fines, jail a couple of high-ranking execs and serve notice to the rest of the industry that such behavior won't be tolerated. But that's not the case. Cigna was following the rules. The problem is that the rules are insane. That's why this profit-driven disaster of a medical system must be replaced.
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Nataline Sarkisyan's request was evaluated on an expedited basis using "evidence-based guidelines published by independent physician and medical organizations, as well as expert scientific journals," Cordani said. Translation: We made a life or death decision based on a quick scan of "Liver Transplantation for Dummies" and we backed that up with a little reading on WebMD. Oh, and JAMA, too, and Lancet maybe… And don't forget Dr. Igor Rudinski's best seller, "The Home Guide to Major Abdominal Surgery."
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The big con: we've already got national health care but the peasants don't get to use it
Perhaps the most galling stat of all: A Harvard Medical School study showed that, back in 1999, the US taxpayer shouldered the burden for just under 60 percent of all medical costs nationwide by being forced to fund health care for federal, state and local government employees. That included programs such as the Federal Employees Health Plan and those for state and local employees as well; the Cadillac coverage our fine representatives and Senators enjoy (and which they say we can't have); the cost of covering ER expenses for those without insurance; Medicare; and the costs of various state-run Medicaid programs.
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