In Friday’s debate, John McCain uttered a familiar refrain about the supposed dangers of providing universal health care:
Well, I want to make sure we’re not handing the health care system over to the federal government which is basically what would ultimately happen with Senator Obama’s health care plan. I want the families to make decisions between themselves and their doctors. Not the federal government.
It makes my blood boil when I hear that line. I’m not sure what John McCain’s experience with health care has been recently (oh, wait, he’s already on a couple government-run health care plans), but citizens of the United States already have the wrong people making their health care decisions for them: corporations and insurance companies. Both of these entities make decisions about our health care every day and they don’t have our interests at heart.
Corporations routinely decrease the amount of money they contribute to employee health care, which results in real changes you’re forced to make to your own health care plan. If you can’t afford to stay on the “great” plan you’ve always had with the company, you need to downgrade to a cheaper plan with fewer benefits. Of course you could always go and buy the insurance yourself, but say goodbye to any coverage for anything that already ails you.
Insurance companies’ drive for profit is clear and there couldn’t be any more antithetical thing than trying to make a profit on keeping people well.
So if the United States adopts a health care system like France’s non-profit/multiplayer system, where every citizen can choose their own doctor, take their doctor’s recommendation about specialist care without fear of that referral being denied, and general live a life where you worry whether you will die because your HMO/Health care insurer decided they wouldn’t approve preventative care or a medical procedure you needed, how is that hurting your choice?
If you want to hear more about France’s health care system, NPR did a report on the experience of a few mothers in France, including one who tried the “choice” offered by private insurers in the US. A notable quote from the article:
In the United States, Tomas had insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield. Tanya couldn’t get on his policy, however, because they weren’t yet married. She tried to buy health insurance for herself, but every American insurer turned her down.
The reason: She was pregnant.
“They said, ‘We don’t insure a house on fire,’ ” she says, remembering the unpleasant euphemisms insurance agents used to explain their rejections. “I had a ‘pre-existing condition,’ which was pregnancy. I just couldn’t believe it.”
Cost per capita for US Health Insurance: $5,711
Cost per capita for France: $2,902