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Single-Payer Health Care is the Way to Go

The United States may have the most expensive health care system in the world but it's not even close to being the best. When you compare the U.S. to Canada, Germany, the U.K., New Zealand, and Australia, the U.S. ranks dead last in access, efficiency, safety, equity, life expectancy and infant mortality. Why is this and what can we do to fix this problem?

The biggest problem with the U.S. health care system is that it's run by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. At any given time, the insurance company that one is paying for may decide that a life-saving operation will not be covered because it's just too expensive and takes away from the company's profit margin. Sure, they won't admit that outright but there are many, many instances where one small mistake on an insurance form is used as an excuse to deny coverage. Some insurance providers have gone as far as to deny one woman coverage because she forgot to put a yeast infection from decades before on the form.

Wendell Potter recently left his 20 year career as a senior executive for Cigna and Humana. He also showed up in Congress with a beef that began: "My name is Wendell Potter and for 20 years, I worked as a senior executive at health insurance companies, and I saw how they confuse their customers and dump the sick-all so they can satisfy Wall Street investors". (Potter's full testimony can be found at Consumer Watchdog. org). His testimony is no surprise to political historians. Former president Richard Nixon is on audio tape discussing HMO's with Ehrlichman. Ehrlichman describes the HMO as a program in which "all the incentives are toward less medical care, because the less care they give them, the more money they make". Nixon's response was, "not bad". The very next day, February 18, 1971, Nixon introduced the HMO onto the unsuspecting public.

For more than 30 years, the health insurance companies have been denying us care so that they can become rich. This is just a fact.

The pharmaceutical companies are not much better. It sounds terrible but they make more profit if you stay sick than if you get well. And, if you're really not all that sick they'll find some minor ailment that they can peddle the cure for. If you've actually listened to the drug commercials that list side-effects that are far worse than the original condition you completely understand this. Why would anyone risk death to alleviate restless leg syndrome?

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