I've been wondering about this for months. What IS the new health care system that we are arguing about? How can I know if I'm for it or against it until I know what it is? That was one of the topics Bill Moyers discussed with his guests, Trudy Lieberman, director of the health and medical reporting program at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism, and Marcia Angell, senior lecturer in social medicine at Harvard Medical School and former editor in chief of the New England Journal of Medicine.
TRUDY LIEBERMAN: [Barack Obama] has essentially advocated is throwing more money into the current system. He's treating the symptom and he's not treating the underlying cause of our problem. Our problem is that we spend two and a half times as much per person on health care as other advanced countries, the average of other advanced countries. And we don't get our money's worth. So, now he says, okay, this is a terribly inefficient, wasteful system. Let's throw some money into it . . . Into the same system. That's his problem. The other problem, in the press conference, was that he was trying to mobilize public support for a bill, and we don't know what that bill is.
Here's a big problem with the current system:
MARCIA ANGELL: Well, that goes to the cause of the problem. We are the only advanced country in the world that has chosen to leave health care to the tender mercies of a panoply of for-profit businesses, whose purpose is to maximize income and not to provide health. And that's exactly what they do.
Angell then strongly states that the system that Obama is apparently pushing doesn't change this sad situation, even though 2/3 of Americans prefer the Canadian-style single payor system.
Is Obama going to change health care for the better? Angell says she's not optimistic:
But what I would say this time around, and now I am going to be very pessimistic, Bill. This time around, I don't think it's going to happen because of the power the pharmaceutical and insurance lobbies. I don't think it's going to happen. But I would rather see Obama go down fighting for something coherent and practical that the public could mobilize behind, than go down fighting for this amorphous plan that tries to keep these private insurance industry in place . . . Well, he will have to fight . . . I think he'll go down. I don't think he's grasped the nettle. And I don't think that even the best of the proposals that he is considering are going to be effective. And I worry about even the public option, because the power of the insurance industry is so great that I believe that they would use their clout in Congress to hobble the public option in some way.
What's the only solution? Angell says it forcefully:
I think we have to go for a single payer system. You could institute that gradually. You could do it state by state. You could do it decade by decade. You could improve Medicare. That is, make it nonprofit. But extend it down to age 55 and age 45 and age 35. It would give the private insurance industry a chance to go into hurricanes, earthquakes or something. To get out of the health business. It could be done gradually. I think that has to be done. And it's the only thing that can be done.
As always, Bill Moyers and his guests give you details and arguments that you won't find in most news sources.
