By Johnathon Ross, M.D., M.P.H.
The (Toledo, Ohio) Blade, November 3, 2018
As a physician caring for poor and uninsured patients for decades, I can tell you that good insurance coverage saves lives and saves money. The Medicaid expansion under Obamacare provided fairly comprehensive coverage to 702,000 Ohioans. Republicans, like gubernatorial candidate Mike DeWine, persist in their misguided effort to repeal this coverage, including Obamacareās pre-existing conditions protections. Real lives are being saved. Real suffering, disability, and deaths are being prevented with appropriate care.
But Obamacare didnāt solve our problems. It didnāt attack the fundamental disease of American health care ā its financial complexity. Private insurance policies are incomprehensible for patients and physicians alike. Twenty-five million Americans remain uninsured, but weāre all unsure about our coverage. It is the privately insured that have seen co-pays and deductibles soar adding āfinancial toxicityā to the dangers of treatment. Coverage now mimics those hospital gowns leaving us seriously exposed.
We know Medicare works. It successfully covers the most expensive and complex patients (the chronically ill, elderly, and disabled) that the private insurers would not insure prior to its passage in 1965. (Being old was a pre-existing condition.)
Multiple studies, even those by opponents of Medicare for all, agree that Medicareās administrative simplicity could save hundreds of billions and allow first-dollar comprehensive coverage for all without cutting the pay of caregivers. Medicare allows complete choice of caregiver and hospital. It would save lives, save money, and take the burden of seeking and purchasing health insurance off of businesses and individuals.
Why should we suffer this private insurance failure when we could improve and expand Medicare to all? The Medicare law already exists. Medicare has been improved by amendment many times. We need the political will. An improved and expanded Medicare would provide liberal benefits and conservative spending. It would end medical bill bankruptcy. It is the logical and effective plan that could replace Obamacare to the benefit of all.