Help is on the way for our huge health care problem! On March 10 a bill was
introduced into the legislature that will insure health care for each and
every citizen of our state, and remarkably, it will even save money.
Is such a rosy picture believable? It is! Because it has been tested and
is now operating in every other advanced country of the world! In the U.S.
we spend over 15% of our growth domestic product (GDP) on health care, and
we leave over 42 million people with no health insurance at all! All of these
other countries spend about 9% of their GDP on health care, and every one
of their citizens is covered.
How could we save all this money? - mainly in administration. It takes a
roomful of clerks to sort out for each patient (if there is insurance or
an HMO) what kind it is, which things each plan covers, and how much each
patient should co-pay. Instead, if these patients all had a "Health Security
Card" (like their Social Security Cards) they would hand the card to the
doctor, or hospital, and all expenses would go to one single payer.
That roomful of clerks could be reduced to one or two people. None of the
health care dollar would go for advertising, for a profit to go to the
shareholders, for outrageous executive salaries and bonuses. Administrative
costs for insurance companies or HMO's average 13%. The total paperwork including
doctors and hospitals takes over 25 cents from every health care dollar.
For Medicare (a single payer plan covering everybody over 65 and some people
with disabilities) only 3% of your health care dollar goes for administration.
For social security it is less than 2%. It has been called a miracle that
every month millions of correct social security checks go out right on time.
Yet opponents keep arguing that "the government can't do anything right"!
Some day something like Medicare might come from the national government
to cover everybody. But meanwhile states are going ahead, from Maine to
California. Wisconsin has been known as a progressive pioneer. We can polish
that reputation when we pass the health care bill introduced on March 10!
Katherine Wenban
Executive Board Coalition for Wisconsin Health
