Guest Comment: Cost of universal health care

I’ve been watching the political debates recently and am perplexed by the lack of leadership from the Republican Party on health care. While the Democrats may not have perfectly defined plans yet, at least they are talking about it.

Critics of universal health-care coverage always raise the two specters of socialized medicine and higher taxes.

A single payer system is not socialized medicine. Socialized medicine is when the government funds and manages health care by directly employing health-care providers. No one is suggesting that, although it has worked rather well with the Veteran’s Health Administration. In a single payer system Hospitals and Doctors would continue as they are now. In fact, with a single payer system Doctors could spend more quality time with their patients and still be profitable.

Critics say that health-care coverage for everyone will cost more than our current system (in which over 47 million citizens, 16 percent, are without health-care insurance). In fact, the opposite is true.

Consider:

a.. The United States spends nearly $100 billion per year to provide uninsured people with health services, often for preventable diseases or diseases that physicians could treat more efficiently with an earlier diagnosis.

b.. Hospitals provide about $34 billion worth of uncompensated care a year.

c.. Another $37 billion is paid by private and public payers for health services for the uninsured and $26 billion is paid out-of-pocket by those who lack coverage.

d.. The uninsured are 30 to 50 percent more likely to be hospitalized for an avoidable condition, with the average cost of an avoidable hospital stay estimated to be about $3,300.

e.. The increasing reliance of the uninsured on the emergency department has serious economic implications, since the cost of treating patients is higher in the emergency department than in other outpatient clinics and medical practices. An average visit to an emergency room costs $383 whereas the average physician’s office visit costs $60; it is estimated that the excess cost to taxpayers for emergency room use is $5 billion to 7 billion;

It is estimated that the cost of providing universal health care would be between $34 billion and $69 billion. In 2005, the Emory economist Dr. KennethThorpe published an important report for the National Coalition for Health Care, a strictly non-partisan, broad-based coalition of businesses, providers, unions, and other groups interested in improving the health-care system.

The report determined that the creation of a universal, publicly financed plan would save this nation $1.1 trillion over 10 years. Other plans (mandates, expansion of Medicaid, expansion of Federal Employee Health Benefits) would save between $320 billion and $369 billion over 10 years. (To put it into perspective, consider that the War in Iraq has currently cost just under $500 billion since March, 2003 and could cost as much as $1 to 3 trillion depending on how long it lasts.)

Any way you look at it, it’s not only more humane but also cheaper to insure everyone than it is to continue down the path we are on now. If you are a fiscal conservative, you must vote for a candidate who has a plan for universal health-care insurance. It will save taxpayers trillions of dollars, save lives, prevent bankruptcies, and help ensure our children’s and grandchildren’s economic future.

So, if it’s the fiscally conservative thing to do, why don’t we already have universal health care? One reason: lobbying by the industry that would lose profits if we did...insurance companies. Personally, I think the physical and financial health of the country is more important than one industry’s profits.

Sherry Hull worked in the financial and software industries and moved from San Francisco to Tubac in 2003, where she works part-time in real estate development and mortgages.

The views expressed are the author’s and not necessarily this newspaper’s. Comment on this story online at www.gvnews.com