Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:57:02 -0800
Does solidarity exist in the United States?
Los Angeles Times
February 23, 2004
State Cutbacks Harm Kids’ Health Program
Re “Budget Signals Narrowed Ambitions,” Feb. 18: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s finance director, Donna Arduin, suggests that expanding California’s Healthy Families insurance program for low-income children was indulging a policy whim. To the contrary, the state-federal Children’s Health Insurance Program is recognized widely as the one genuine health policy success of the last decade. Although the numbers of uninsured have continued to increase, they would be even greater without this program.
The political agenda on both the state and federal levels is to create nearly intolerable debt in place of modest taxation of significant private revenue sources. But the voters surely didn’t intend that more children be excluded from this essential health insurance program. Or did they?
Don McCanne MD
San Juan Capistrano
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/letters/la-le-priests23.2feb23,0,7725486.story?coll=la-news-comment-letters
And…
Los Angeles Times
February 23, 2004
In health, Canada tops U.S.
An impressive array of data shows that Canadians live longer, healthier lives than we do. What’s more, they pay roughly half as much per capita as
we do…
Exactly why Canadians fare better is the subject of considerable academic
debate. Some policy experts say it’s Canada’s single-payer, universal health
coverage system. Some think it’s because our neighbors to the north use
fewer illegal drugs and shoot each other less often with guns…
Still others think Canadians are healthier because their medical system is tilted more toward primary care doctors and less toward specialists. And some believe it’s something more fundamental: a smaller gap between rich and poor.
Perhaps it’s all of the above. But there’s no arguing the basics. “By all measures, Canadians’ health is better,” says Dr. Barbara Starfield, a university distinguished professor at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions.
Gerald Kominski, associate director of the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research, puts the Canadian comparison this way: “Are they richer? No. Are
they doing a better job at the lower end of the income distribution? For
lower-income individuals, they are doing a better job.”
“The summary of the evidence has to be that national health insurance has
improved the health of Canadians and is responsible for some of the longer
life expectancy,” says Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, an associate professor at
Harvard Medical School and staunch advocate of a single-payer system.
Of course, some causes of death, such as homicide, wouldn’t be much affected
by having a single payer system.
“Other things might be differences in seat belt usage,” adds Robert Blendon,
a professor of health policy and political analysis at the Harvard School of
Public Health. “We are also disproportionate consumers of illegal drugs… ”
The health of Americans would be better with universal healthcare, he says.
The bottom line is that Canada is doing something right, even if “the reasons are not totally understood,” says Kominski of UCLA.
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-canada23feb23,1,6443349.column?coll=la-headlines-health
Comment: Although there are many differences between the United States and
Canada, there is absolutely no dispute that affordable access to comprehensive health care has improved health care outcomes in Canada. How have they been able to achieve so much more at a significantly lower cost? Based on the well documented, universal support of their medicare system, Canadians have demonstrated the importance of national solidarity.
Does solidarity exist in the United States? Some believe that it is only a matter of educating the public. If people really understood that we could raise the standards for lower-income individuals with relatively modest public support, then we would unite in solidarity.
But many states have had ballot measures that required voters to choose between taxes or the necessity to reduce public programs for the most vulnerable citizens. The results have revealed our dirty secret. Of all ndustrialized nations, the people of the United States are unique in lacking solidarity. Is it possible for us to change that?