By Dan Doyle, M.D.
The Real WV, Letters, September 1, 2024
The nearly 2000 employees of the Greenbrier Resort were informed on August 19 that they would lose their health care insurance because the company had not paid their insurance premiums for the past four months. A last-minute deal on August 29 continued their coverage for now, but the future remains uncertain.
As a family physician with over 40 years practice in southern West Virginia, I find this cruel and outrageous.
The trauma suffered by these employees is one more example of why the current Employer Sponsored Insurance (ESI) system does not serve the American people well. Even with Medicare and Medicaid, the current system still leaves 28 million Americans and 106,000 West Virginians uninsured. Instead, we should have a non-profit, single-payer system that covers every American from birth to death. Workers’ health insurance would be portable instead of constantly endangered by corporate decisions, layoffs, or just plain corrupt management.
Self-employed workers, low-income service workers, and young people (19-24) are the ones most likely to go bare facing potential bankruptcy every day from an accident, sudden illness, or complications of chronic disease.
Two bills introduced before the U.S. Congress would correct this situation. HB3421 with lead sponsor Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and SB.1655 with lead sponsor Bernie Sanders (I-VT) lay out details for transitioning US health care from an employer-based system to an improved Medicare for All system. Everyone would be covered birth to death and not face the uncertainty currently experienced by the Greenbrier employees.
The moral case for such a system is easy. Health care is a human right. No man, woman, or child in the wealthiest nation on earth should go without.
The economic case is also strong. Numerous policy studies have demonstrated that for what the U.S. is spending on health care now, every one could be covered. But it would require controlling run-away drug prices and corporate greed that places profits over patient care.
That’s why the politics is hard. There is so much money at stake to keep the current unjust, dysfunctional system in place.
Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) has been educating and advocating for such a system since 1985. The WV chapter of PNHP is working statewide to inform our patients, our colleagues, health professions students, and our elected representatives about the availability and feasibility of improved Medicare for All.
We won’t quit until everyone is covered. Everybody in, nobody out.
