I often get into heated debates with a co-worker of mine over the need for some sort of universal health care coverage for all U.S. citizens.
My co-worker is dead set against it, he argues that health care would be rationed and he would have to wait to see a doctor. He tell of how his cousins from Canada came across the border to seek medical treatment because they had to wait so long to be treated in Canada for what ailed them.
He buys into the old GOP argument that government bureaucrats would be deciding what was best for himself and family rather than his doctors.
I show him the irony to his argument by pointing out that instead of government bureaucrats making health care decision for us, we have insurance companies making those decisions for us today.
When I point out to him that there is close to 100 million people in this country that have no health insurance at all and because of this, we and our employer pay for it through our insurance premiums, he says he does not care, he is only interested in the facts. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to discuss thing with him.
So for my co-worker, here are some facts. I found this information on Think Progress's The Wonk Room. The study was done by the Center for American Progress:
When the uninsured cannot pay for the care they receive, health care providers shift costs to Americans with insurance in the form of higher premiums. A new report from The Wonk Room’s Ben Furnas and Peter Harbage concludes that a failure to continuously cover all Americans accounts “for roughly 8 percent of the average health insurance premium“:
This cost-shift amounts to $1,100 per average family premium in 2009 and $410 per average individual premium. By 2013, assuming the cost shift remains the same percentage of premium costs, the cost shift will be approximately $480 for an individual policy and $1,300 for a family policy.
Read the full report>>>Here
2 comments:
I fear the universal health care too. Whatever they have in Canada is not working.
However if they had a better idea I might consider it. Can I choose my own doctor? Can I choose when I will have surgery and not have to get on some long list and suffer for months or years before my number comes up?
Even the Canadians say their system stinks so where's the better alturnative?
No one, myself included, is calling for the U.S. to adopt Canada's system.
The point of thepost was to point out that the uninsured costs each of us more money in premiums than what it would cost to have Universal care.
We can shape and mold it to fit our needs. The bottom line though is to make sure that all have coverage.
When the uninsured use emergency rooms as a substitue to primary care, the system fails and costs are past on to all of us.
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