The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and Health Care Reform in the United States

By Don R. McCanne
International Journal of Health Services
Volume 39, Number 4 / 2009

Abstract:

Among OECD nations, the United States is an outlier in having the highest per capita health care costs in a system that unnecessarily exposes many individuals to financial hardship, physical suffering, and even death. President Obama and Congress are currently involved in a process to reform the flawed health care system. The OECD has contributed to that process by releasing a paper, “Health Care Reform in the United States,” which describes some of the problems that must be addressed, but then provides proposed solutions that omit consideration of a more equitable and efficient universal public insurance program. The same omission is taking place in Washington, DC. By reinforcing proposals that support the private insurance industry, the source of much of the waste and inequities in health care, the authors of the OECD paper have failed in their responsibility to inform on policies rather than politics.

http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?id=g132608kq2372735

The OECD has a mission of bringing together governments “committed to democracy and the market economy.” Their release of a paper supporting a private insurance model of reform for the United States seemed to be a fulfillment of this mission. But even their paper added nothing that would refute what we already know from our efforts at reform: the private insurance model is an expensive, wasteful, inequitable, and a fairly ineffective model of ensuring affordable, high quality care for everyone.

It’s not too late to change. Many undoubtedly contend that most of the political capital has been spent and that we cannot go back, but political capital is not a finite commodity. Political capital can be wasted, as it has been on the current reform process. Pursuing policies that cater to the private insurance industry at the cost of health care justice very rapidly depletes political capital. But new political capital can be generated simply by pursuing popular policies that would lead to success in achieving our goals.

The OECD is not going to help us infuse more political capital into the process, but we can do it ourselves. Communicate. Educate. Grassroots. Coalitions. Just think of how much political capital we could generate as long as our goal is affordable, high quality health care for everyone. The supply would be endless.