Tag: Single payer health care

Canadian Health Care

This is real personal for me. I have a daughter with a very serious gastro intestinal disease.  She has a Blue Cross independent medical plan that currently costs about $5,000 per year.  The deductible is $4,000 annually.  Until that deductible is paid Blue Cross pays about 50% of each doctor’s visit.  The plan DOES NOT cover all medications.  Consequently the medication for her disease IS NOT covered despite a doctors presentation explaining her need for a special medicine that has no generic substitute.  The consequence is that the medication is bought from a Canadian pharmacy at 1/3 the cost in the United States.  The cost of the medication is $250 for a 90 day supply from Canada or a 30 day supply in the USA.

Why We Need Universal Health Care

Health care insurance is too expensive.

The stated goals of health care reform in 2009 (Obamacare) in the USA were

  1. lower costs
  2. cover all Americans
  3. drive quality
  4. and be paid for (without impacting the federal budget)

Premiums for Californians’ Obamacare health coverage will rise by an average of 13.2% next year, according to the Los Angeles Times, more than three times the increase of the last two years. Premiums in the insurance program rose just 4% in 2016, after rising 4.2% in 2015 – the first year that exchange officials negotiated with insurers.

An analysis by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation of 14 metro areas that have already announced their 2017 premiums found an average jump of 11%. The changes ranged from a decrease of 14% in Providence, R.I., to an increase of 26% in Portland, Oregon.

Ouch! What happened to objective 1 – lower costs?

While Obama Care has provided insurance coverage to 11.7 million people there are still 12.9 million people without any coverage as reported in a Gallup Poll. In other words about 4% of the population is uninsured.

 Obama’s intentions were good but his goal have not been met. Single payer health care like Medicare would cover everyone without exception. That would put for profit insurance companies out of business. Putting companies out of business is the stumbling block to genuine health care reform.

Despite Senator Bernie Sanders this is not likely to happen in the U.S. A. that considers free enterprise one of its basic tenants.