Health insurance a must

According to a 2002 report by the National Academy of the Sciences, the U.S. health care system is confronting a crisis. The current crisis is due primarily to the private control of our health care system.

As health management corporations extend the profit motive deeper into our already damaged health care system, concerned citizens are pressing for real and humane solutions. These solutions surpass the temporary "prescriptive" recommendations of our government representatives, and call for a universal and equitable single payer health care system.

Although the United States spends 14 percent of its gross domestic product on health care, which is more than any other country, we consistently are unable to provide quality care for our citizens.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau in 2001 and 2002, 41 million people, or one in seven individuals, completely lack health insurance â€" and this figure is on the rise.

If the segment of the population that lack complete coverage is included (those who do not have coverage for the entire year), that figure jumps to 62 million.

These statistics do not include the millions of U.S. residents who are considered "underinsured". Underinsured individuals have health insurance plans, often provided by employers that do not cover certain medical procedures or that require major financial contributions from patients for each medical procedure they need. The plight of the uninsured and "underinsured," recently dramatized in the film "John Q," demonstrates a complete failure of the U.S. medical system to uphold the basic human right to health care.

These numbers have real human consequences.

A 1997 study in the New England Journal of Medicine estimated that almost 100,000 people in the United States die each year due to a lack of needed care. That's three times the amount of people who die each year from AIDS.

The elderly and terminally ill, those people that are most at risk, are continually forced to choose between non-medical basic necessities (such as utilities) and crucial medical treatments. This troubling reality is only one example of the astounding violations of human dignity caused by the current health care system.

Why are U.S. residents forced to suffer this indignity?

These widespread inequalities have arisen as a result of the profit driven structure of our medical system, which considers health care a commodity rather than a basic human right.

With the cost of health care rising by an average of 12 percent each year, there are increasing numbers of people unable to afford basic health coverage. Meanwhile, insurance companies, HMOs, pharmaceutical giants, and other corporations experience massive financial gains.

According to a 2002 Public Citizen report on pharmaceutical companies, the percentage of revenue going towards CEO salaries, advertising, administrative costs, and profit has continually increased in the last three decades. Pharmaceutical corporations routinely report profit margins over double that of the Fortune 500s average.

HMOs are experiencing similar gains, reporting a 52 percent increase in profits in California in the first nine months of 2003. Meanwhile, growing numbers of people are unable to afford even basic medical procedures. It is a moral outrage that wealthy corporate owners and investors draw such massive monetary gains while the sick languish without care.

There is a viable and just solution to our health care crisis. A single-payer system would eliminate the need for private health insurance companies. It would create a publicly financed health insurance agency (on the state or national level) that guarantees complete coverage to all U.S. residents.

A single-payer, universal coverage system, combined with increased public financing of hospitals, would provide quality medical care to all people in the United States, regardless of economic class. This plan would maintain patient choice while guaranteeing universal coverage at a lower cost to people in this country. Increasing the public and "not-for-profit" financing of hospitals and clinics is a prevalent and successful system in other countries. It would ensure a fair distribution of health services.

All this could be achieved while saving money for the overwhelming majority of taxpayers. The money, currently directed to corporate profits, CEO salaries, advertising, and superfluous administrative costs could be re-directed to solve our health care crisis. Additional financing could be derived from progressive income taxes, founded on the premise that financial wealth should not determine human worth.

As a number of countries have demonstrated, a medically excellent universal health care system is indeed possible. Private control of health services, which places profit over people, is the root of the current health care crisis, not its solution.

It is time that we, as citizens, take action â€" reclaiming our right to health care through democratic participation.

Blair Thedinger is a senior environmental science major. Patrick Ishizuka is a senior philosphy major.