Reforming health care

By Tom Walsh

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In 1974, I was a young journalist sent to Washington, D.C., as the national correspondent for two obscure business magazines. I covered employee benefit issues, including health insurance, which back then was a concept being pioneered by labor unions, especially the United Auto Workers and the United Mine Workers of America.

Running around Capitol Hill, beating the health insurance drum, was a young senator from Massachusetts. Not only was he a proponent of helping both blue collar workers and America's have-nots to have access medical care as a basic human right, Teddy Kennedy was proposing what was then - and almost 40 years later remains - the radical notion of what he termed “national health insurance.” It was a program that would be heavily subsidized and administered by the federal government, not unlike Social Security. It was also a program that scared the bejezzus out of the nation's formidable health insurance and medical lobbies, which circled the wagons - as they are now - to make sure it wouldn't happen.

The unions did what they could to make access to medical care happen for their members through collective bargaining, but universal access to health care never happened, and, in America, perhaps never will. The structure and outcomes of the American health care system remain a global embarrassment among developed nations. By almost any measure, at least 20 other countries have more efficient, effective and affordable health-care delivery systems.

Two-thirds of American adults are overweight or obese, a reality that is contributing to a growing epidemic of Type 2 diabetes and the inherent heart disease and other life-threatening issues it triggers. Sadly, Type 2 diabetes, just a generation ago, was termed “adult-onset” diabetes. Now, with a new generation of sedentary kids who are following in their obese parents' dietary footsteps, Type 2 diabetes is being diagnosed in 6-year-olds.

Childhood obesity, adult obesity and the cascade of disease issues associated with the death-by-lifestyle aura that has settled over America are having - and will have for decades to come - a huge impact on a health care system that already doesn't work. Perhaps it's a good time to invest in the funeral home industry.

One element of the ongoing political hand-wringing over “ObamaCare” and other government-mandated health insurance strategies: None of these approaches addresses reforming health care, in terms of improving the quality of health care. All that these programs attempt to do is grease the wheels for enrolling more citizens into a system that doesn't work. No effort is being invested in reforming how it works, in terms of outcomes.

The deck is stacked against health-care providers and us, and the dealers are the Washington lobbyists who are making sure the rules of the game don't change. I have friends who can't begin to afford health insurance - even high-deductible catastrophic coverage. They include young couples would love to have children, but can't raise the $20,000 or more required to do so. Meanwhile, the system can offer them a $400 abortion. What's wrong with this picture?

Roll your car in Maine, where I live, and wind up in intensive care for two weeks without health insurance, and you'll be bankrupt. If you're a Canadian and roll your car in that country, you won't. While the Canadian health care system has its own issues, it's not a fast-track to being destitute.

If it's broke, fix it. That's not happening, and those with power and influence on Capitol Hill continue to make sure that it won't be fixed. Not on their watch, nor in my lifetime.

Tom Walsh, a former Johnson County bureau chief for The Gazette, lives in Gouldsboro, Maine. He has covered medical and science issues for 40 years. Comments: Tom.Walsh@jax.org