By David Borris
(Thanks to David for sharing the notes he prepared for a talk at the
March 28 Health Care Summit at Countryside Church in Palatine.)
Thanks to our hosts for having us here to discuss this critical topic at such an opportune time. And I appreciate everyone who took time out of their busy schedules on a Saturday afternoon to come out and share their thoughts, hopes and fears about where health care is headed in this country and how we can help shape the agenda. And it is up to us to shape the agenda if we want to see true reform. The health insurance industry, aligned with the for profit medical community and the mega pharmaceutical giants are ready for battle. They do not want to see any real reform that will jeopardize the rapacious profits they have enjoyed for decades, and they are prepared and organized to see that the status quo is not disturbed to any great degree. And most of the folks over there in Washington DC are only too happy to accommodate their major donors if we do not stand up and hold them accountable.
Meetings like this should be, and are happening all over the country as people like our hosts here and
A Better Day work to create opportunities for all of us to discuss what is broken and what is possible. So thank you once again for coming- and thanks in advance for what you will be doing in the next few months to radically transform Health Care in America and make this country a more equitable, a more honest, and a more just place to raise our children and our grandchildren.
Before we talk about solutions, I would like to give an overview of the problem. So let me try to do this simply and clearly. While the details of specific solutions often appear quite complex, the problem can be stated clearly.
- We pay too much.
- We get too little.
- Too many people are left out.
Let me articulate. According to both the
Mckinsey Institute and the
California HealthCare Foundation, the United States of America spends 16% of our 14.4 trillion dollar Gross Domestic Product on health care. That is almost $7900 for every man, women and child living in our country. By way of comparison – The organization for Economic Cooperation and Development – which tracks 30 high income nations – reports that Switzerland spends only 10.9% of its GDP on Healthcare, Germany 10.1 %, Canada and France approximately 9.5% each. So we outspend the next nearest country by over 50%, in the richest nation on earth. Surely we must get what we pay for...
Think again. Once again referring to the OECD data, the United States ranks:
- 25th out of 30 High Income Nations in Mortality from Heart Disease.
- 23rd out of 30 in overall Life expectancy.
- 25th in Low birth weight children.
- And most disturbing of all, 27th out of 30 in Infant Mortality. There are 26 high-income nations in the world who spend less than 60% of what we spend for health care who give their newborn infants a better chance at survival than we do.
Why is this? How can the wealthiest nation the world has ever known, the business-savvy, technological cutting edge envy of the world, be such a sucker when it comes to the health and quality of life for its people?
Because we leave too many people out. Walk down the street—every sixth person you pass has no health insurance, and thus a severely limited ability to access quality health care. Of the other five people who walk by you, another 1 is underinsured - so will not be able to take advantage of treatment options that he or she thought they had coverage for until they became ill.
Meanwhile, costs are soaring. Since 1999, employment based health insurance premiums have increased by 120% - well more than doubling, while cumulative wage growth has grown by a mere 29%.
At the same time, employers continue to shift the burden of rising premium costs onto their employees. The annual Kaiser Family Foundation survey released in September of 2008 reports that the average worker now contributes nearly $3400 to their health insurance premiums --$1600 more than they did in 1999, and 12% more than they did in 2007.
Is it any wonder that more and more employers have chosen to severely curtail or drop coverage altogether? According to the Illinois Main Street Alliance, 12% of small business polled in over a dozen states have dropped coverage altogether in the past two years while 35% report switching to coverage with less benefits. And just three weeks ago,
Hewitt Associates released a survey stating nearly 1/5 of U.S. employers will stop offering health benefits in the next 3-5 years, more than 5 times the number that reported that just last year.
And with the current economic downturn resulting in job loss numbers of almost unprecedented proportions, isn’t it obvious that we can no longer afford to wait for a broken, noncompetitive “Market” to work out a solution?
It is time that we reconnect to what health care should be - a profession whose primary mission is to improve the lives of those it serves, not an industry whose purpose for being is to maximize profit at the expense of the least fortunate. We are currently engaged in a great debate of how to most meaningfully achieve this rebalancing.
We won’t develop comprehensive solutions here this afternoon – but we can all walk away from here with a more educated and more focused framework and direction. And we can bring the ideas that we will discuss in more detail later this afternoon to the attention of our friends, neighbors and elected officials as we make this the year that we finally address one of the most vexing issues hamstringing the economic recovery - how to provide quality, affordable health care for all.
Comment: we have an opportunity to influence health care legislation that is under consideration now. We can join forces to ensure that the result truly serves the public and not special interests. There is a major rally for health care reform on Saturday, April 18 at St. Augustine College in Chicago. A free bus to the rally and back will be available from Palatine and Arlington Heights - specifics online here. - Hal
