How to Give Health Care to All Our People
Inexorably, as the national health bill rises, the number of people able to afford health care diminishes, steadily and alarmingly. There are more than 37 million uninsured; untold more millions are underinsured, while we boast the most technologically advanced facilities in the world.
The United States is lagging behind industrial nations, ranking behind even China, in a number of important indices. Nations with some form of national health plan surpass us in significant areas, including longevity and cardiovascular disease survival.
What Bowsher’s article did not articulate, however, was how to effect change: how to contain costs reasonably and intelligently so that health care can be available to all. That challenge was one a grass-roots group on Long Island took up less than three years ago. Beginning as the Nassau Coalition for a National Health Plan, we studied the alternatives and decided that a rational reform called for a plan that would be universal, not dependent on any means test, but, like Social Security or unemployment insurance, open to all. It should be comprehensive, to include preventive, long-term and dental care, prescription drugs; and it should be a single-payer plan, i.e., one vehicle for administrative work, disbursements, eligibility questions, etc. This provision alone would result in annual savings of $40 to $60 billion a year.
We are not talking about the sweet by and by. Indeed, we’re working for a bill that has been introduced by Rep. Marty Russo (D-Ill.). Two Long Island congressmen, Thomas J. Downey and George Hochbrueckner, are among the original sponsors of the bill.
The logic is inescapable. People are entitled to fair, dependable health care that they can afford. Poll after poll shows that Americans are discontented with what we have now.
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