Like the creepy guy who falls asleep next to you on the late-night bus, the breakdown of our health care system is getting harder and harder to ignore. Roughly 15 percent of the U.S. population has no insurance coverage (and the number is rising), and we’re the only developed country that has no national health care system.
I’m originally from Canada, where we have a single-payer health care system (i.e., the government controls and pays for all health care, and private practices are illegal). Health care up north isn’t perfect either, and an examination of what’s wrong with any system demands a momentary check of our ideals to pragmatically focus on what is preventing people from being healthy.
The United States ranks lowest in the G8 for the amount of health care paid by the government (44.6 percent). Yet paradoxically, we rank highest for the percentage of government revenue that goes towards health care (17.6 percent). In other words, we shell out the most tax dollars for the least amount of care.
Paperwork and bureaucratic red tape is an enormous hidden part of this problem. A patient’s insurance plan might cover surgery A, but not surgery B. The plan might prefer drug C to be prescribed, as opposed to drug D.
This is a hassle in itself for both doctor and patient, but factor in the multiple companies with the range of plans available in said company, and the result is that health care providers must constantly be fitting health care to the requirements of the patient’s insurance policy. None of these administrative costs has made anybody healthier.
So part of the efficiency problem is the needless plethora of insurance companies available-roughly 1,500 in the country-as opposed to the cost of actual medical care. The Drum Major Institute estimates that the United States would save $161 trillion on paperwork alone if we threw out the multiple insurance providers and adopted a universal single-payer health care system.
Many have been clamoring for a universal single-payer health care system, because, gosh, the idea of someone else paying all our medical bills sure is appealing. But with universal health care inescapably comes a decreased quality of overall care.
Example: Here in the United States, I can make an appointment tomorrow with a surgeon to get my knee replaced, and I can probably have the surgery done in a matter of months. I might not have a way to pay for it, but I can still get it done. In a system like Canada’s, I would have to put my name on a waiting list, and maybe in a year or two, I could go in and have my surgery.
Yeah, in the big picture, that situation is better than having to pay astronomical sums to get the care we need right away, but it is a trade-off, and one we have to be willing to make if we want to make the move towards a national system. This is an easy thing to accept on paper right now, but it’s a little harder when you’re in pain, need an operation, and can’t get it because there are dozens of people already in line before you.
Something we would do well to look at is the two-tier system. All developed nations-with the exception of the United States and my maple-syrup-swilling homeland-have some variation of a universal health care system along with a private system, akin to our system of private/public schooling. This allows the wealthy to pay for premium quality health care if they wish, which in turn eases the pressure on the public system, and, as long as private providers bill their patients directly instead of relying on insurance companies, still cuts down on red tape.
Health care expenses are troubles that a lot of us students can look at as a future problem, as those of us taking nine or more credits have basic medical and dental coverage from the student health fee (and if you haven’t taken advantage of this, do! The Center for Student Health and Counseling is on Southwest Sixth Avenue between Hall and Harrison, or you can go to www.shac.pdx.edu).
But like the sleeping guy on the bus, eventually you have to move or he’s going to wake up, and we too will have to work towards ensuring all Americans have access to affordable health care.