Tax-Financed Health Care: More Bang for the Buck

[RedEarth]

Tax-Financed Health Care: More Bang for the Buck
By Johnathon Ross
Johnathon S. Ross MD, a Toledo internist, is past president of Physicians for a National Health Program (pnhp.org) and a member of the Ohio council of Single Payer Action Network (spanohio.org).


Shame on all of us, especially those of us in positions of public trust. Forty-five million of our friends, family, and neighbors, including 1.3 million Ohioans, have no health-care coverage at all.

Tens of millions more are at risk of bankruptcy even though they have insurance. Their coverage is too skimpy to protect them financially.

The health-care bureaucracy already consumes 31 percent of spending. The fees for tracking 300 million individual HSAs would only aggravate this shameful waste.

Half of personal bankruptcies are due to uncovered health-care bills, again the hallmark of HSAs. Even boosters of HSAs (Mckinsey and Co.) find 56 percent of employees less satisfied with their new accounts than their old health plans.

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Patchwork solutions such as Medicaid expansions, vouchers, tax credits, or medical savings accounts won't work. They mainly serve to enrich the insurance bureaucracy. They fail to control costs and fail to cover everyone. Fundamental reform is what we need.

The Institute of Medicine estimates that 18,000 Americans die each year from lack of health insurance alone. A tax-financed universal health insurance system will save lives and save dollars. It's good for business and our health. Counter-intuitive or not, businessmen and all of us should support a single-payer universal health insurance solution. Financially, we already are.

What's the bottom line? America needs affordable universal health insurance. We can build it with administrative savings and public accountability but not with health savings accounts designed to profit Wall Street and the insurance industry. HR 676, the National Health Insurance Act or the Health Care for All Ohioans act would create an expanded and improved Medicare for all Ohioans. We know it would work because Medicare works. It would save lives and save money and it is the right thing to do.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/60312/