councilor.org
| Source | Dave Anderson |
| Date | 99/10/31/22:51 |
| (USA Today, September 30, 1999) Bradley rehashes stale ideas By David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler Former senator Bill Bradley's health plan would deliver billions to insurance companies and HMOs. But it won't deliver the universal health care that Americans deserve. For 15 years, we and 8,000 colleagues in Physicians for a National Health Program have pushed for nonprofit national health insurance. The need for change grows each day. The number of uninsured has increased by 6 million since President Clinton took office. Millions more have such poor coverage that a serious illness would bankrupt him. HMO patients are hurried out of hospitals and worried that care will be denied when they're sickest and need it most. Seniors can't afford drugs, and hundreds of thousands have been dumped by profit-hungry HMOs. As health costs rise, reaching over a trillion dollars this year, $250 billion goes to health-care bureaucracy and profits. Yet Bradley refuses to take on the greedy insurance companies, HMOs, hospitals and doctors responsible for this mess. Instead, he would hand HMOs $193 billion from Medicaid and $65 billion in new tax dollars to cover some of the poor and near-poor. The new tax subsidies would tempt employers to eliminate health benefits for lower-income employees. And Bradley would ask most uninsured workers to ante up for their own coverage, assuring that tens of millions would remain uninsured. As for children, he would force cash-strapped parents to buy private coverage, offering inadequate subsidies for working families and generous tax breaks for the wealthy. In contrast, national health insurance would give every American an insurance card, good at any doctor or hospital. It would eliminate insurance companies and HMO bureaucracy, saving the 15 cents of every premium dollar they take for profit and overhead. We'd save $150 billion annually on paperwork, according to the Congressional Budget Office-enough to cover all of the uninsured, eliminate HMO restrictions, improve coverage for millions and provide free drug coverage for all seniors. Polls show that most Americans favor such reform. But few politicians besides Sen. Bulworth, Warren Beatty's fictional anti-hero, have the guts to push for it. Bradley's plan would just add money without cutting waste. He would duplicate past reforms that have already failed: for example, former governor Michael Dukakis' inept Massachusetts health plan that promised universal coverage in 1988, but saw the number of uninsured in the state double by 1998. Similar reforms in Washington and Minnesota, as well as the federal Kennedy-Kassebaum and CHIP legislation have failed to cut the number of uninsured. Bradley promises straight talk, fresh ideas and the courage to take on vested interests. But his health plan recycles ideas floated by Al Gore and, before him, Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter. The American people will have to look elsewhere for health-care leadership. We need more Bulworth and less bull. Drs. David U. Himmelstein, M.D., and Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., are co-founders of Physicians for a National Health Program. |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho