Why is it whenever one — Kucinich in particular — mentions single payer universal health care the red flag goes up? Isn’t Medicare single payer health care? I don’t hear seniors objecting to it. In the good old days when Blue Cross-Blue Shield was predominant and the cost of health care was still reasonable, millions of workers were either generously covered by large companies, or through small businesses offered a group plan at a cost that would not take bread off the table. But that was in the days when AMA had a conscience before it began to represent “entrepreneurial” physicians of specialization that was seen as profitable and crowded out the old fashioned general practitioner whose profession was in daily contact with real people in the community in need of his or her expertise in treating illness in their families.
Granted specialization has performed miracles in medical science and worthy of praise; yet is it too much to ask that true artists of medicine retain the practice for its own Hippocratic magnificence, rather than latch on to the like psyche of overpaid CEOs who have lost their humanity? True, in a system of real priorities a brain surgeon is surely worth more than an executive of a company, just as a classroom teacher or registered nurse in terms of true value is worth more. However, the present system, especially in that healthy people far outweigh the unhealthy, rewards are extended to those who enhance the material bliss of the majority which seldom thinks it will be unhealthy — and in most cases the reason so many are uninsured. Next is the physician who insures that bliss is maintained and the more intense the effort the greater the reward as it should be to the extent it offsets the stress of performance, together with sacrifice of training in order to be on a given level of professionalism
Lacking, nonetheless, are guidelines or cost analysis of said procedures. A reasonable reduction of surplus profits will not turn off the physician anymore than a professional sports league’s edict to rollback outrageous salaries to athletes who would have no alternative but to remain with the medium in which they do best. Since there is a minimum wage law, is it not logical that there be a maximum? Should the 400K earnings of the President of the United States be topped by a rock star or a chief executive of a corporation? Notwithstanding — wherein mistrust of politicians exists, and the euphoric perceptions of the entrepreneurial icon — the Trumps and A-Rods are systemically lionized.
Of course, cost analysis of the medical arts without escalating malpractice insurance would be dishonest. In egregious malpractice, there must be compensation to fit the pain, sorrow and subsequent costs. That said, need it be the decision of a jury or would a balanced commission of medical experts and judges be more reasonable? Whatever, the criteria would be to confine itself to the degree of trauma and material cost resulting from the malpractice and not based on the whimsicality of a lottery. As for the physician, the AMA must screen its members for quality and weed out the incompetent, yet allowing for reasonable human error. Nor should physicians be expected to bear the entire premium. There should be an emergency fund set aside by the government to offset extraordinary settlements as is done for national disasters.
As any educator can tell you, costs of supplies and tests are contained if controlled by a regional district in lieu of individual schools’ purchasing them. So, too, with a single payer of universal health care, this leviathan of purchase and payment would dramatically reduce the nation’s medical costs.
Copyright © 2004 Richard R. Kennedy All rights reserved. Revised: August 13, 2004.