By TERRY HAVENER
The Tribune-Democrat
January 16, 2007
As a citizen of this great nation, my health care should not be a privilege. It should be a right — not a handout but a true entitlement.
And not something I either pay for or beg for, but a given, no-questions-asked guarantee.
The time for national health care is now.
The United States is the only developed, industrialized country that does not provide national health care to its citizens.
Employment-related health care, where a person’s well-being is negotiated along with his or her wages, is becoming a casualty of a global market system that pits American workers against workers in third-world countries.
The current high cost of health care, when linked to global competitiveness, can be a deciding factor in the winning or losing of business opportunities.
More and more, companies are forcing employees to assume the cost of health care. Insurance co-pays and deductibles diminish the worth of workers’ paychecks, and are growing faster than most salaries or cost-of-living increases.
Many union-run health plans are being bankrupted or are being forced to restrict or eliminate coverage.
Meanwhile, the business of health care has become just that — big business. The cost of an individual’s health is based on profit margins, country-club memberships and the price of the most recent trendy luxury car.
Dr. Marcia Angell, a senior lecturer with the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, said, “The underlying problem is that we treat health care like a market commodity instead of a social service.
“Health care is targeted not to medical need, but to the ability to pay. Markets are good for many things, but they are not a good way to distribute health care.”
Legislation proposed in the U.S. House of Representatives, HR 676, would establish a national health plan for all Americans — a Medicare- for-all type plan. Sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.), it now has 77 co-sponsors.
According to the All Unions Committee for Single Payer Health Care, based in Louisville, Ky., HR 676 has been endorsed by 192 union organizations, including 44 central labor councils and area labor federations, and 12 state AFL-CIOs , including Pennsylvania.
HR 676 is also endorsed by Physicians for a National Health Program. PNHP is a single-issue organization with more than 14,000 members. It advocates a universal, comprehensive, single-payer national health program.
So unless you are completely satisfied with your health-care plan and its delivery system, get involved.
Voice your concerns to your legislator and urge him or her to sign on to HR 676.
The health of our nation is too important for anyone to stand on the sidelines.