Healthcare Victory, AlmostPublished January 2002
by Bill McCoy
Advocates of government-run health care in Maine claimed victory in Portland, overcoming an expensive campaign against their referendum.
52 percent, or 6,979 city residents, supported universal health care. 48 percent, or 6,447, voted against it. The vote is non-binding, meaning that the City Council is not required to approve any of the referendum's proposals, such as approving a city resolution supporting universal health care.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Maine, spent $381,803 to oppose the referendum. Consumers for Affordable Health Care and the Maine People's Alliance had raised a combined $15,030. In Illinois, similar advisory votes in several counties since 1999 showed support for a statewide health-care system. There is now a movement to put a binding referendum on universal health care on the statewide ballot.
Such a question was defeated by a narrow margin last year in Massachusetts, again, with overwhelming spending by insurance companies. Advocates are shoring up support for another try in coming years.
Single-payer universal health coverage could save Vermonters more than $118 million a year over current medical insurance costs and cover every Vermonter in the process, according to a new report which was the center of discussion during a Health Care forum. The guest speaker was Dr. Deborah Richter, FORMER METRO-JUSTICE MEMBER and a family physician with the Cambridge, Vt., health center, who said the problem in the U.S. is that it doesn't really have a system.
The U.S. has what she termed a loose arrangement that wastes billions of dollars in administrative costs created by the vast number of different health insurance companies offering various health plans and all requiring different types and amounts of paperwork. It's cheaper to pay directly for the medical costs than to pay insurance premiums, said Richter, a member of Physicians for a National Health Program. Every other industrialized country realized this long ago.
A woman who manages a clinic said that nearly every patient the clinic serves has a different kind of insurance coverage requiring its own special paperwork, and one mental health professional said she spends half of her working time filling out forms instead of treating patients.
Richter explained that healthcare administration, which involves mainly paperwork, overhead and bureaucracy expenses, is responsible for 24 percent of all healthcare costs. In the past 30 years, the number of healthcare administrators has increased 25 times, while the number of healthcare practitioners -- doctors and nurses -- only increased by two and a half times. Under a single-payer program, health coverage would be paid for by a payroll or income tax. This arrangement would mean that taxpayers making less than $75,000 a year would see an average yearly decrease of more than $1,000 per family over current health insurance costs, while those earning $75,000 to $100,000 a year would see a nominal increase of about $58. Hardest hit would be families earning over $150,000 a year.
Every poll taken shows that two-thirds of the American people are in favor of this. The problem is that insurance and drug companies have more money than we do. Vermont and the nation could examine all the universal coverage programs now in use around the world and find out what has worked and what hasn't. In general, this is a better deal for businesses, and they know it. It's common sense, and it makes business sense.
Is it time for Rochester, Monroe county, or New York to have universal health care?