In search of vision on health care
Presidential candidates talk about it, but their plans fall short.
Editorial
Des Moines Register
August 19, 2007
“Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. The time has arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and that protection.”
Who spoke those words?
A. Hillary Clinton, at the Iowa State Fair.
B. Mitt Romney, in a town-hall meeting.
C. President Harry Truman, in a 1945 speech to Congress proposing a national health-care system, and President Lyndon Johnson, who quoted Truman when he signed Medicare and Medicaid into law in 1965.
Those words sound like statements made by today’s candidates, but if you chose C, you get an A in health-care history.
Unfortunately, the words of Truman are as true today as they were 62 years ago. An estimated 47 million Americans are uninsured and don’t have the opportunity to enjoy good health. They aren’t protected against the financial disaster an illness can bring. This country is facing a health-care crisis. In poll after poll, Americans list health care as the most important domestic issue.
What’s needed: a president with the vision and passion to reform this country’s health-care system the way Johnson and Congress eventually did.
It’s up to Iowans - who are in the unique position of being visited by droves of presidential candidates - to demand that kind of vision and passion from our visitors.
It’s time for this country to do something historic. The creation of Medicare and Medicaid were historic. Poor and elderly Americans needed health care. Congress responded.
Now it’s time for Congress to respond again by creating a system that provides basic coverage to all Americans at an affordable cost. This editorial page has long argued that the best option would be to finance the system through tax dollars, similar to the popular Medicare program for seniors. Under so-called “single-payer” systems, the government is the payer for services delivered by private-sector hospitals, doctors and clinics. Patients would still choose their own doctors.
Such a system would dramatically cut red tape and administrative costs. Medicare’s administrative costs run less than 5 percent, compared to double-digit administrative costs in the private sector.
It’s up to the next president to lead Congress down the road to an affordable health-care system that covers everyone. All of the candidates spend time on the stump criticizing the current system. And several have rolled out reform plans. Unfortunately - with a few exceptions - the plans are tepid or misguided or half-baked. They’re too safe. They lack vision.
Some plans wouldn’t really cover everyone. Others are vague about the price tag or include no realistic mechanisms to control costs. Most gloss over the tough questions about what a “basic” plan would really cover.
Maybe they fear offending the insurance industry and powerful special interests that make campaign contributions. Or they’re afraid a plan will be labeled “socialized medicine.” Or they push ideas such as “electronic medical records” - which amount to tinkering with the system.
What they should be pushing is vision - the vision of doing what’s right.
Leaving millions of Americans without health insurance isn’t right. Forcing people into bankruptcy because they’re sick isn’t right. Living in a country that offers great medical advances and life-saving treatments but to only some of the people isn’t right.
Twentieth-century American history is littered with failed health-care reform plans. The next president must have a clear vision for doing right by Americans on health care - and the passionate persistence to see a reform plan enacted.
Standing up for what’s right starts on the campaign trail.