Here's a wonderful idea: develop a low-cost health insurance program, run by the state, for low-income working adults and their dependents. Sound like a good one? Well, it is - it's called MNCare - and THOUSANDS of people in the state of Minnesota over the last decade have saved the state BILLIONS of dollars by having preventative healthcare coverage.
MNCare was designed to prevent their other option: wait until they're so sick they need emergency care, so they go to the emergency room and need (and are provided) far more intensive diagnostic services, most likely an expensive hospital stay, and expensive aftercare and medications. All of this, by the way, the "community" hospital is required by federal law to cover if the patient can't afford it or they don't qualify for Medicaid or Medicare. These costs also get passed on to the hospital's other patients in the form of really high healthcare costs. And, since a lot of hospitals now own HMO's (or vice versa), our health insurance costs also go up.
Don't believe me? I worked in one of the largest Midwestern teaching hospitals for 4 years, on the largest adolescent psychiatric unit in a 5-state region. Trust me - I saw it happen nearly every day.
So anyway - why am I all fired up about MNCare, if it's such a marvelous thing? Well, here in MN we have a republican governor (Tim Pawlenty - you may have heard of him - he's apparently one of the rising stars in the GOP), who took a "no new taxes" pledge when pressured by his right-wing wealthy cronies at the Taxpayers League. He has not only single-handedly (okay, with the help of our republican-dominated state House) dismantled our progressive, nationally recognized system of taking care of the people of our state (otherwise known as social or safety-net programs). To balance the budget without raising taxes, he has cut and cut and CUT funding to health & human services programs, closely followed by our education system.
His new proposal is to tighten the criteria to qualify for MNCare - which he has loudly proclaimed to be "welfare healthcare." This proposal would effectively cut 27,000 working adults and their dependents off the program. I remind you: these are working adults, merely taking advantage of a program that was specifically designed for them, to save the state billions of dollars! Now, to top it off, the republican chair of the House Health Committee (Rep. Fran Bradley) has proposed a bill that would knock another 2,700 off the program! (I know, when you're talking thousands, what's a few more, right?!)
So there it is. "Welfare healthcare." Another well-planned and implemented social program, that is doing exactly what it was intended to do (dual purposes, actually), branded negatively and being dismantled by the almighty "I pulled myself up by my bootstraps so why the hell can't you" crowd... And THAT'S why I'm so fired up today!
6 comments:
I find it hard to fathom why the U.S. doesn't have a healthcare system. Granted ours in Canada is not perfect but there are so many stories of families being ruined and older people divorcing etc. because they can't afford to be sick.(33% of your population will probably have cancer at sometime in their life)I think all people should have free healthcare and education reagrdless of their station in life. (besides freedom etc.)Then Bush says that he will let people pull out of Medicare/Social Security so they can govern their own funds when all this will do is increase the underfunding of the program, and, I get this sneaky suspicion that some of these funds will be plundered by dishonest S&L type people leaving unsuspecting people without any coverage.
Believe me - after the election last fall, several in my "group" seriously considered moving up to your neck of the world!
"socialized medicine" is a difficult beast, but universal healthcare is an absolute MUST for the continued health of our global society. you mentioned cancer - try 1 in 4 will suffer from mental illness at some point in their life, and 1 in 6 women suffer from infertility - BOTH very treatable conditions, and neither covered well (if at all) by most US health policies. but that's a different rant for a different day!
Sad to say fertility isn't covered ( or at least some treatments aren't..boo)and I am not sure how successful our mental health policy is, I know our social workers and mental health care staff are way overworked, but, hey what's new in that. The one plus with our health care is that if you are in an accident or have an emergency eg appendix etc. then in you go and all you have to do is sign the paper and be on your way, no losing your house or car, or divorcing your wife, hmmm no no just kidding dear.
With all our faults we seem to be more of a consenus nation, lovers not fighters?
What i find most ironic in all this talk about healthcare, is that the one program that actually works well, with very little overhead, and provides some of the best coverage in the USA (Medicare/Medicaid) is also on the verge of being dismantled if Bush has his way.
There is a very consistent theme with the Bush whitehouse - if it actually works (read: takes care of the needs of the AVERAGE American citizen), then we don't need it anymore. Do I even need to mention that this includes environmental policy?!
Yes, I think Canadians tend to be more of a consensus nation... the US no longer leads the world in TRUE democracy...
The US was never a True democracy anyway. "...To the Republic, for which it stands..."
Anyway, G, I am here now...
Come on, G, talk about the new Real ID or the lack of judicial oversite on DHS decisions that went into the "must-pass" military appropriations bill.
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