By Brad Cotton, M.D.
Circleville (Ohio) Herald, Jan. 12, 2012
What if 911 was run the way we do health care in the U.S.?
Much of the following is taken from J. Wesley Boyd, M.D., Ph.D., āHealth Care Blues ā or, Why Exactly Donāt We Have Single-Payer National Health Insurance?ā (available at Physicians for a National Health Program).
āIs this 911?ā
āYes.ā
āI have an armed intruder in my house. Please send the police right away. Iām afraid heās going to kill us all.ā
āIām sorry. From our database, I see the household you are calling from does not have anyone who is employed and therefore you are not entitled to police protection. Youāll have to fend off the intruder yourself. Bye.ā (Click)
Or imagine this scenario, which might hit a bit closer to home for many of us with unaffordable and inadequate underinsurance:
āIs this 911?ā
āYes.ā
āI have an armed intruder in my house. Please send the police right away. Iām afraid heās going to kill us all.ā
āI see from our database that your employment provides you with our Best Blue police coverage. Best Blue is a wonderful protection plan. We will be able to send an officer out just as soon as we receive your credit card number for your $10 co-pay. Also, once the officer arrives ā assuming your credit card payment is approved by MasterCard ā he will be able to use his revolver to stop the intruder but not his shotgun. Youāll have to pay the full cost of shotgun coverage yourself. With the Blue plan, the officer can pursue a suspect on foot free of charge to you, but if the officer needs to pursue in his cruiser, you would have to foot (Iām so sorry for the pun) that bill yourself. Also, we would not be able to provide you with the aerial support that we provide our Gold members but, donāt worry, almost nobody needs that kind of service. And finally, as it states on page 28 of your coverage manual, Blue coverage does assume you are at least a Brown Belt in Karate, so statistically you would be able to fend off intruders half of the time by yourself ā¦.ā
Sounds pretty bizarre, right? But we Americans accept the same reasoning all of the time with respect to our health care coverage. And although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) will decrease from 50 million to about 30 million, those us with no coverage, as in the first caller above who gets only āByeā and a (click) from 911, the current model of reform shovels your tax dollars directly into the boardroom and stockholders of the āBest Blueā insurance company. Perhaps the health insurers are the armed intruders threatening our lives?
We can do better. Canada takes care of all her citizens, every single one at half the cost and with better results. How? Well, for starters they are not wasting 31 percent of every health care dollar on the slimy āBest Blueā health insurers as we do. Canada has more primary care doctors per capita that we do, furthermore, Canadians see their doctor more often, receiving better care than we do.
Come on down to the Scioto Valley Coffeehouse, 216 West Main, at 6 p.m. on Sunday to see āHealthcare: The Movie,ā featuring interviews with Canadians about their highly patient-rated health care system. We could get started on the path to do as well as Canada so easily. Just go to the Medicare statutes and erase all references to Americans over age 65. Replace with āeligible at birth.ā Kurt Bateman, director of the Ohio Single Payer Action Network and myself, member of Physicians for a National Health Program, will be available to field discussion.
Martin Luther King, whose birthday we observe this month, reminds us access to health care is not a āpolicy-wonkā political and academic debatable topic, it is a moral question. How we take care of the āleast of theseā (Matthew 25:40) reflects on our Christian character: ā Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.”