Daniel Freilich's Blog
Posts Tagged ‘health care’
Wednesday, February 24th, 2010
The President will be discussing health care reform with Democratic and Republican congressional leaders in two days.
I wonder if he will discuss the potential merits and deteriments of truly transformational health insurance reform — replacement of our multipayer market-based private health insurance system with a single payer national health insurance system (Medicare for All).
As almost every other industrialized nation on the globe has succeeded in achieving universal health care in a cost-effective manner with national health insurance programs, it behooves our leaders to put ideology and political expedience factors aside for the duration of the detente meeting, and discuss this potential solution to our health care crisis. The predicted savings, hundreds of billions of dollars annually, would be an economic stimulus, increasing American business competitiveness, profitability, and affordability to increase hiring.
At the very least, the single-payer health insurance system potential solution to our moral and economic health crisis should be deliberated upon publicly.
Details about the campaign’s platform regarding health care reform can be found at: http://www.danielfreilich.com/health_care.php.
I wouldn’t hold your breath but maybe we will be surprised.
Dan F
Tags: health care, Medicare for All, Single-payer health insurance system, Universal health care insurance
Posted in Health care reform | 10 Comments »
Monday, January 4th, 2010
Pursuit of optimal rather than politically expedient health care reform
The Vermont Workers Center’s Healthcare Is A Human Right Campaign will be delivering thousands of postcards to the Vermont Legislature on Jan 6, 2010 at noon. If you haven’t already signed a postcard, please sign one at www.workerscenter.org/Jan6postcard. If you can attend, please email kate@workerscenter.org.
Our campaign fully supports the concept that healthcare is a human right and that health care cannot be traded fairly as a commodity (as is the case in the current U.S. multi-payer market-based health insurance system). I support pursuit of a single-payer system in Vermont in the interim while working on a national system. This is suboptimal but realistic.
I support a national single-payer health insurance system (Medicare for All) as evidence shows it is the only system that can be reasonably expected to extend medical and dental coverage to all Americans in a cost-effective manner. More than $300 billion annually would be saved in lower administrative costs; $100 billion in drug costs due to improved bargaining power with pharmaceutical companies; and $40 billion in eliminated costs for the currently ‘uninsured’. As such, Democrats and Republicans alike should support a single-payer system.
It is mystifying to see how the Democratic Party has pursued the more politically-expedient compromise of further institutionalizing our current broken system with ‘reform’ that leave millions without health insurance and many more millions without dental insurance, and won’t extend coverage for years anyhow. It is similarly surprising that the Party would give a bonanza to the insurance industry by imposing a mandate such that millions of healthy young people will be signing up for private insurance. Finally, there is little reason to believe the ‘reform’ will ‘bend the curve’ in any meaningful way. I believe it will dramatically increase the national debt or be curtailed in the first place in the ensuing years to prevent that from happening.
The biggest irony of the single-payer debate has been the Republican Party’s (and business’) refusal to consider the cost-savings of a single-payer health insurance system. The savings would lead to a significant stimulus to the economy as a consequence of improved competitiveness, profitability, and job creation. It appears that raw ideology has usurped serious thinking.
I believe our three congressional representatives (Senators Leahy and Sanders, and Representative Welch) should vote against any conference health care bill that is similar to the recently passed House and Senate bills. There is an opportunity for a Vermont revolution leading to the export of robust Vermont values of fairness , reasonableness , and decency to the rest of the country.
Our congressional representatives should insist on an open and public debate about the potential merits of a single-payer system by the President and Congress.
They should also insist on a renewed professional and ethical commitment to public service by disposing of any PAC funding that may have established a conflict of interest, and thus, potentially clouded their objectivity. In the absence of such a ‘return to sender’, they should recuse themselves from voting on the matter. Such ethical requirements are standard for non-elected federal government officials and should be followed by elected officials as well.
History would judge such courage, enlightened thinking, and leading by example generously.
Daniel Freilich
Tags: health care, Healthcare is a human right, Medicare for All, Representative Peter Welch, Senator Bernard Sanders, Senator Patrick Leahy, Single-payer health insurance system, US Senate candidate Daniel Freilich, Vermont Workers Center
Posted in Health care reform | 1 Comment »
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