Insuring Our Health
Health care reform is now up for debate and we have our first chance since 1993 to change our health care in a way that will save lives and save money.
Currently the United States of America has the 37th best health care system in the world according to the world health organization.
Before the Politicians just throw a plan at us and other Politicians and special interest groups oppose it. Let's think about what a real solution is. In order to do this we must first fully recognize the problem.
Millions of Americans do not have health insurance. The rest of Americans have health insurance that is either too expensive, ineffective, or predatory and exclusionary not allowing people who need treatment to get it. This problem is even worse because Americans are so sick. We are sick because the food we eat is unhealthy, and the drugs we take are over prescribed, and there is no emphasis in this country on healthy living and preventative health care.
More and more Americans are becoming obese, which leads to diabetes and heart disease. More and more Americans are being diagnosed with cancer and this has a direct correlation on the dramtic change to the way we eat food, which occured about 50 years ago when we created processed foods.
Why are we so unhealthy? It is because it's profitable. It is far more profitable to sell Americans unhealthy food than it is healthy food. Our meat is factory farmed, which is not only cruel to the animals but cruel to the humans that eat them. Cows for instance are meant to eat grass, yet we feed them corn because it is cheaper and makes the meat more marbled (code for fatty). The poor diet our food is fed in combination with their living conditions causes our food supply, chickens, pigs, and cows to become sick. Our solution is to pump these animals full of antibiotics. In a nut shell we are eating food that is bad for us, and full of drugs that lead to tolerance in humans when we actually need antibiotics.
Why is insurance so expensive? For one, insurance companies can charge what they like because they are price fixing health coverage, something we have to buy because if we don't it could kill us. This is not ethical but it is profitable. Additionally in order to make even more money the health insurance companies deny coverage to people who need it to save money and they also don't provide health coverage to people who are predisposed to disease.
Now the solution. We need to provide all Americans with good affordable health insurance. This is achieveable with a three pronged plan.
1) The government provides a not for profit alternative to private health insurance which will compete with private insurance. This plan can be comparable to private insurance and cheaper for various reasons. The government alternative plan will be modernized and computerized, saving costs on paper and files. The government plan will have it in their interest to negotiate with drug companies in order to buy their pharmaceuticals at a lower cost like most countries in the world do. The government plan will not be a publicly traded company which has to make bigger profits year after year so their stock price stays high and their investors make money. Additionally the employees would be paid a moderate government salary which will also make the insurance affordable. This government plan would be similar to medicare, which works, but it will be different and better by building off of medicare, taking what works and changing what doesn't. It is important to remember that this government plan is simply an alternative to private insurance. So if you have extra money to spend you can still have private insurance or supplement your government plan with some private insurance. Either way this will allow the uninsured to be insured, which will allow Americans to seek preventative health care. This will save our country money by avoiding medical emergencies and preventable diseases.
2) One big way to save money on health care is to not get sick. We need to create a wellness culture in our society. Through education and government regulation we have been able to get many Americans to do their bodies a favor and stop smoking cigarettes while at the same time using tax revenue from this dangerous product to invest in further education of the health consequences of this product. We could do the same thing to trans fat, high fructose corn syrup and certain processed foods. We could also use this revenue to encourage them to go for check ups, exercise and make healthy choices.
3) We need to change the way we produce food in this country. Factory farming is not only making us sick it is one of the leading causes of climate change. Additionally our vegetables are being sprayed by pesticides which run off into our drinking water. The health consequences of the use of these chemicals being sprayed on our food is researched not by the FDA or the EPA but rather by the company who sells the chemicals and the EPA keeps them on the honor system to insure these chemicals are not dangerous. We need better laws that make sure the food we eat is healthy and the only way to get these better laws is to first put in place campaign finance reform. The food and drug lobbies are almost as powerful as the oil and gas lobbies. We will never have laws that protect Americans and hinder industries proftis as long as the corporations through campaign contributions are the ones getting our politicians elected.
Some may criticize my plan as actually increasing the cost of food. They have a point in that in order to provide healthy food to Americans it might, and likely at first, cost more. But I will simply remind my detractors that if you don't have your health, you don't have anything.
Filed under: Uncategorized on June 4th, 2009 | No Comments »