[Vision2020] Good Health Care is Critical

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (January 5, 2011) Moscow-Pullman Daily News with
thanks to Nick Gier.

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Good health care is critical

Gresham Bouma (Opinion, Dec. 23) can theorize all he wants about
free-market health care, but there is no evidence it will work.

In March 2009, Business Roundtable issued a report that demonstrated that,
on a 100 point medical "values" scale, the U.S. is 23 points behind
Canada, Japan, Germany, the UK and France.

H. Edward Hanway, CEO of Cigna Insurance, states: "What's important is
that we measure and compare actual value - not just how much we spend on
health care, but the performance we get back in return" (The Associated
Press, March 12, 2009).

Why is the rest of the industrialized world ahead of us and why do we
place last among 19 nations in preventable deaths? The answer is clear:
These nations have mandatory universal coverage, provided by either
private nonprofit insurers or government insurance.

These countries also control medical costs by insisting on a national fee
structure for every procedure. Since 1980 Germany's health care costs have
tripled while America's have sextupled.

Even though many new drugs are developed in the U.S., Americans still
spend 35 percent to 55 percent more for their pills.

The Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that "The GOP plan
would reduce premiums for healthy people, bringing more of them into the
insurance pool, and raise premiums for sicker people, driving them out."

Republicans favor medical savings accounts, and they point to Singapore as
a successful experiment. The only problem is that the program failed.

In 1993 the Singapore government had to set up Medifund, which now pays
$218 million dollars a year to subsidize health care for the poor and
indigent.

Health care is a basic right not a commodity, and the sooner Americans
realize this the better off they will be.

Read my columns on health care at:

www.home.roadrunner.com/nickgier/health.htm and HealthMyths.pdf

Nick Gier
Moscow

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Amen, and thanks, Nick.

In the absence of reliable, affordable health care many families
throughout our country will be forced to rely on the local hospital's
emergency room.

What then?

Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom "member of Tri-Care, one of them gubmint health care programs" Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown