BROKE AND DESPERATELY ILL

"A society is seriously out of whack when legalized loan sharks are encouraged
to close in on those who are broke and desperately ill." --Bob Herbert (BH)

Both Herbert and Paul Krugman (PK) have important op-ed columns on health
care in today's New York Times. I hope you'll read both. Herbert points out:
"A serious illness for people already in shaky economic circumstances can be a final
push into bankruptcy. . . There is an epidemic of personal bankruptcies in the U. S.
and medical factors are believed to play a role in as many as half of them."

"It's one thing to reach for your Visa or Mastercard to pay for a Barbie doll or flat-
screen TV," continues BH. "It's way different to pull out the plastic because you've
just learned you have cancer or heart disease, and you don't have any other way to
pay for treatment that would prevent a premature trip to the great beyond."

As Herbert explains further, this medical debt, in many cases, is to be paid off at
sky-high interest rates. If you are late, or miss a payment, they bump the interest
rate to as high as 30%. Many families are crushed by the load, driven from their
homes, forced into bankruptcy, and worse. (As I have stated in another context,
that's what is destroying families: it's not gay marriage!) Think of this trauma
added to that of serious illness!

The rest of the industrialized world considers the plight of our 45 million uninsured,
and shake their heads in disbelief at our indifference and neglect of the needy. And
they take note of our pride, our wealth, and our claim to be "a Christian country."
It just doesn't track, does it?

Those countries all have universal health care. Everyone is insured in a single-
payer plan, like Canada has. Eighty per cent or better of the Canadians
approve of their system. What percentage of our people approve of ours?

Instead of fixing our broken system which is breaking our middle class, Mr. Bush
wants to entice the uninsured with tax breaks, so they'll buy insurance! (He
knows of few problems he can't solve with tax breaks.) Paul Krugman says of
this nonsense: "Wow. Those are the words of someone with no sense of what
it's like to be uninsured." (emphasis mine.)

Krugman goes on to explain: "Most people without health insurance have low
incomes, and just can't afford the premiums. And making premiums tax-
deductible is almost worthless to workers whose income puts them in a low
tax bracket. Of those uninsured who aren't low-income, many can't get
coverage because of pre-existing conditions -- everything from diabetes to a
long-ago case of jock itch. Again, tax deductions don't solve their problem."

Further, P. K. adds: "The administation also believes, for some reason, that
people should be pushed out of employment-based health insurance --
admittedly a deeply flawed system -- into the individual insurance market,
which is a disaster on all fronts. Insurance companies try to avoid selling
policies to people who are likely to use them, so a large fraction of premiums
in the individual market goes not to paying medical bills but to bureaucracies
dedicated to weeding out 'high risk' applicants -- and keeping them
uninsured."

Harry Truman tried fifty years ago to introduce a single-payer health plan
that covered everyone. He couldn't get fellow Democrats to support it. I'm
hoping someone can do that now. As Bob Herbert says: "At the very least,
in the short term, we need to protect financially vulnerable patients from a
credit card universe in which there are no legal limits on fees or interest,
and where the abuse of customers is the norm."

jgoodwin004@centurytel.net