By Jim Spencer
Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Ask investigative journalist Jim Steele if he is a scorned prophet because he claims the American health care system is terminally ill, and he says two words
:Canadian drugs.
Proof is everywhere that health care in the U.S. is in “Critical Condition,” as Steele and co-author Don Barlett titled their most recent book. But nothing bodes a health care revolution like Americans purchasing Canadian drugs.
Defying federal laws, states and cities have joined private citizens buying Canada’s affordable pharmaceuticals.
Changes in how this country organizes and pays for health care must come from the ground up, Steele said last week as he waited to address a fundraiser for the nonprofit group Health Care for All Colorado. The outlaw purchasing of prescription drugs paves the way for more radical steps.
“There’s a tremendous amount of mythology about the American health care system,” Steele said. “This country has talented people who can provide the best care in the world. But in Canada, if you get sick, you don’t run the risk of losing your house. Here, you do.
“You have freedom of choice to choose your doctor in Canada and Europe. Here, your insurance company cuts deals with doctors and hospitals and sometimes tells you where to go.”
In their book, whose complete title is “Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business and Bad Medicine,” Steele and Barlett don’t stump for any specific country’s medical delivery system. Rather, they call for an overhaul of the American model.
The authors suggest a quasi-public United States Health Council, modeled organizationally after the Federal Reserve. The council would standardize health insurance and guarantee at least minimal health care to all Americans.
“We spend a higher percentage of our national wealth on health care than anyone in the world,” Steele said. “And yet we don’t live as long as most of (the world’s industrialized countries).
“This problem doesn’t require more money. We need to redirect what we’re already spending.”
An attempt to make medical care more efficient and affordable by applying market principles is so far past the point of diminishing returns, said Steele, that human suffering now grows nearly as fast as costs.
In a 2004 survey, said Steele, the Center for Studying Health System Change detected a “marked shift” in the willingness of doctors to allow government involvement in reforming health care.
That’s because “a sizable percentage of our population lives outside the health insurance system,” Steele said. “A sizable percentage is underinsured.”
In researching “Critical Condition,” Steele and Barlett found many Americans one illness from financial ruin.
A recent study showed that medical bills played a role in a third of all personal bankruptcies.
Things are getting worse, said Steele. Because of rising costs in medical care, fewer small businesses can afford employees’ health insurance. At the same time, large companies are cutting health benefits while increasing employees’ portions of premiums.
“We have created a monumental bureaucracy in health care,” said Steele. “Some studies say one out of every three dollars goes to bureaucracy.”
This bureaucracy siphons millions of dollars that should be spent on actual treatment. Instead, said Steele, doctors and hospitals spend a fortune trying to get reimbursed by hundreds of insurance plans with different rules.
A single-payer health care system or standardization of insurance companies’ coverages may not yet resonate with U.S. politicians or voters, said Steele. But most Americans are painfully aware of health insurance “customer service” representatives trained to stonewall people trying to get their medical bills paid.
As soon as an affordable alternative to that runaround becomes available, people will latch on to it faster than a cheap dose of Canadian drugs.
And the revolution will continue.
Jim Spencer’s column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. He can be reached at 303-820-1771 or jspencer@denverpost.com.