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During my recent visit to the Lake District in England, my father-in-law, George Kingston, hiked up a 1,000 foot hill and hiked 5 miles around a lake on a rugged, swampy trail. He is almost 88 years old and I have been watching him age for the last few years. I have been able to do my own independent study of health and aging in the United Kingdom through my numerous trips to England.
Universal Healthcare was adopted in England when the World War II Veterans came home wounded and insisted on it. When Margaret Thatcher came into power she virtually undid almost all of the government programs with the exception of The National Healthcare System. She knew she would be quickly voted out of office if she touched it.
I have been a believer in Universal Healthcare for over ten years. I believe we have come to a point in our history as a nation when we simply can’t afford to not have it. People’s lives are at stake and the underlying values of the medical profession are being eroded so that the self interests of industry profits can be satisfied.
Every day across the United States families, men, women, children and seniors experience healthcare crises. With 40 million people in America without even basic healthcare insurance these crises often lead to homelessness, bankruptcy and loss of home ownership. The material losses simply cannot measure the emotional losses and stress that accompany them; depression, anxiety, despair and sometimes suicide.
Ten years ago when Hilary Clinton tried to restructure healthcare in America about 40% of Americans believed we needed a national healthcare program. Today that figure has risen to over 70% of Americans. We simply are no longer buying the myth that socialized medicine is bad for us because the facts bear otherwise.
A 2000 year report by the World Health Organization put the United States 37th out of 190 nations in health care services -- between Costa Rica and Slovenia. The 36 countries that have lower infant mortality and greater longevity all have one thing in common; they have a form of universal healthcare. This ranking of the US also explodes the myth that we have the best medical care in the world.
The only universal healthcare program we have, Medicare, is now being privatized; it is being financially tapped by private HMO’s and the pharmaceutical industry through the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan. Medicare has less than 2% overhead but our current system of private insurance has 25% to 30% overhead. It is no surprise that we pay more for healthcare than any other country in the world with that kind of obscene profit margin.
Another “myth” that has long been circulated is the myth of waiting for procedures. A recent study demonstrated that if you have a serious disease, such as cancer, you will wait longer for surgery in the US than you will for surgery in Canada. The wait for elective surgeries in Canada is longer, but then again, those are not life threatening!
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| My father-in-law, George, once commented that he and his late wife thought that Americans’ lived in a great deal of fear over whether they would lose their jobs, healthcare or housing. He has spent many weeks in the States over the last 27 years.
Universal healthcare does more than just assure healthcare for all, it also addresses the stress levels of the millions of people who must live in fear that a medical crisis will destroy them financially.
We have long talked about the importance of “prevention in healthcare”. One of my observations of the English is that the National Healthcare System encourages prevention and better health habits, such as walking and maintaining a healthy weight. My father –in-law frequently walks around his village outside of London on the hilly narrow roads. He also played a weekly nine holes of golf, walking the course, up until a year ago.
However, both the French and the English drink and smoke a great deal more than Americans, but have much better overall health and live longer. Could this be because they have national healthcare?
Healthcare in a civilized society should be a right. It should be about people and not about profit. Our system that is largely based on profit is immoral when you consider that financial gain is being valued over the lives of human beings. We must insist that our elected officials stop trying to please the healthcare industries and their lust for higher and higher profit margins. We must demand affordable accessible healthcare for all so that we can age and live with kindness, respect, and without the dark cloud of fear that a medical crisis will destroy us.
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| I could not agree more that universal health care is a moral necessity. However, your comment, "Ten years ago ... Hilary Clinton tried to restructure healthcare in America" is not completely accurate. What Hillary Clinton did 10 years ago, & is doing today, is to enshrine insurance companies as the ultimate & only arbiters of health care decisions. This is health INSURANCE, not health CARE. The "restructuring" continues business as usual. Even worse, not only will insurance companies continue to make health care decisions, they will do this in place of genuine health care. The only two presidential candidates who support universal, comprehensive, national health CARE, with decisions about health made by individuals & not insurance companies, are former Senator Mike Gravel & Congressman Dennis Kucinich. While I doubt that either of these men will get the Democratic nomination, I continue to look forward to the day when America joins the rest of the world & establishes a national health care system. Thank you for allowing me to reply. |
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| There are few people who are brave enough to state the obvious as Shirlee Zane has. Yes, we are well overdo when it comes to national Health Care and she could not be more right when she states that we cannot age with dignity and respect in the absence of a universal health care program. My hats off to her and her courage to the moral necessity of the need for a national single payer health care system. |
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