The Black Commentator - March 8, 2007

Every year since 1994, the year in which the Clinton Administration failed to reform the health system in the United States (leaving in place the private health insurance industry dominating the healthcare-delivery system), actual healthcare coverage for people in the United States has continued to shrink. Real costs for private health insurance companies and their profits have skyrocketed. Higher co-pays, premiums and deductibles for the Medicare program have been mandated by the prerogatives of the private health insurance industry.

This is the sleazy side of the healthcare crisis in the United States: private health insurance companies charge more for less coverage and benefit shamelessly from the sheer desperation of people who have no other options. In addition, their inordinate impact on the healthcare system in the United States has prevented the publicly funded healthcare system from fulfilling its potential.

As a result of the dominance of the private health insurance industry, people become impoverished, making some eligible for the deficient Medicaid program, or they live with the extreme anxiety of healthcare insecurity until some become old enough or disabled enough to qualify for the deficient Medicare program, and/or they suffer and they die prematurely from no healthcare at all. Remember, 47 million remain uninsured and another 60 million remain anxiously underinsured. These horrible numbers are increasing every year.

Ironically, it was the powerful lobby of the private health insurance industry itself that deep-sixed the flawed Clinton plan. Historically, lassiez faire capitalism, in the area of the United States healthcare delivery system, has failed the residents of the United States miserably.

The thoughtful public debate over this failure had begun in earnest by the end of the Great Depression. Many progressives believed at that time that then president Franklin D. Roosevelt could have federalized the US healthcare system as a part of the social security system. However, at that time, the powerful opposition of the American Medical Association, United States xenophobia, and popular virulent anti-communism proved to be insurmountable political obstacles that ultimately ensured the entrenchment of a market-based system for the delivery of healthcare in the United States.

Today, we suffer from the chronic triumph of ignorance, political expediency and greed over human need.

But, the political landscape has changed dramatically. In 2007, the people are speaking out; they are no longer willing to tolerate the sheer economic exploitation of the private health insurance industry, the resultant woefully substandard healthcare, and the desperate orchestrated propaganda of the private health insurance industry that relentlessly attempts to obfuscate and sanitize its complicity in the healthcare crisis.

Sure, we all know about the “poor” and the “disadvantaged.” But did you know that the “solidly middle class” is one of the fastest-growing groups among the uninsured; that one-third of the 47 million uninsured in the United States has family incomes of $40,000 or more; and that more than two-thirds of the uninsured are in households with at least one full-time worker?

These folks are scared and these folks are mad. These folks are you and me. And lastly, these folks are not stupid.

Today, an overwhelming majority of people in United States knows that a federally financed national healthcare system (single-payer) that would replace the current market-driven system is best. This was first proposed by President Harry Truman in the 1950’s, later proposed by Senator Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) in the 1970’s, and is now proposed by Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.). John Conyers’ Bill, HR 676, a vastly improved and expanded Medicare for all system, is not socialism, does not restrict consumers’ choice of a private healthcare provider, and does not restrict competition among private healthcare providers. HR 676 celebrates the core values of the American people.

Ordinary people are learning that a national single-payer system would end the healthcare nightmare in the United States; it would control healthcare costs, guarantee full and more comprehensive coverage to every resident in the United States from cradle to grave, profoundly reduce racial disparities in healthcare access, increase competition among providers, widen consumer choices, dramatically reduce health costs for all consumers, and would save thousands of lives while ending the suffering of millions annually.

The profound depth of the healthcare crisis in the United States has itself compelled ordinary people to think for themselves and to seek alternative sources of information. The myth-making and disinformation of the private insurance industry are increasingly falling on deaf ears.

The enormous grassroots movement of ordinary people is discovering that:

Americans pay more when they get sick than people in other western nations that have a single-payer system but get inferior outcomes generally and receive more confused and error-prone treatment;

The private health insurance industry is the prime engine accelerating healthcare costs nationally;

Health insurance premiums continue to rise at the same time that private health insurance companies boast some of the largest surpluses in their history;

Private health insurance profits reached $11 billion in 2004 and continue to rise;

Research indicates that health plans now start around $300 per month and family plans can run $900 to $1000 per month. Co-pays for many members of HMO plans have risen from $10 to $40 or $50 within the past two years. The ceiling for deductibles continues to rise ranging from $250 to $10,000;

From 2004 to 2005, the WellPoint chief Executive, Larry Glassock made $14.12 million in total realized compensation;

William McGuire, UnitedHealth Group CEO made $135.47 million; John Rowe, CEO of Aetna made $57.49 million; Edward Hanway, CEO of Cigna made $42.13 million; and Michael McCallister, CEO of Humana made $5.71 million;

A typical story facing millions in the United States: “I have worked all of my adult life, I am fifty years old and I have cancer. I am middle-class but I can not afford the health insurance coverage. In fact, the only health insurance coverage I could find costs $27,000 dollars a year. I am dying. What am I to do?; and

Private health insurance companies profit off sickness and desperation, stifle preventive medicine, and do not help when help is needed the most.

The American people can no longer bear this reality. Nearly 70% of the US citizens want a federally financed (single-payer) national healthcare system. The overwhelming majority of physicians are also demanding the single-payer solution to the healthcare crisis in this country. An impressive number of hospital CEOs want it. They are all demanding that the private health insurance industry must no longer have a choke hold on the healthcare system in the United States.

But where are the presidential candidates? With the exception of Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), all want to keep the private health insurance industry in business keeping people sick, economically desperate, and profiting off the people’s misery. The Republican Party candidates are actively attempting to expand the role of the private health insurance industry. What are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards doing?

Well, none of them is advocating single-payer because it challenges the prerogatives of corporate America, a major source of their campaign contributions. When Clinton, Obama, and Edwards speak of the single-payer solution not being politically feasible, they are not referring to the democratic will of the American people. We have spoken through the polls and in the 2006 elections. They should listen and take action. Rather, they are actually talking only about their political careers and their need to remain in the good graces of their financial backers. Wherever we encounter these and other presidential candidates, through banners and letters and phone calls to their headquarters, we need to make perfectly clear to each of them that we want a single payer national healthcare system.

Indeed, we have a very steep political challenge before us. The American political system is not fair. Two recent presidential elections were stolen; the American people have voted against the war in Iraq; yet the war is now expanding as the American people build a massive anti-war movement.

The American people, voting with their feet, have always moved mountains and they will move the private health insurance industry into the dustbin of history and win a single-payer healthcare system in this country.

Yes, the political landscape has taken a dramatic turn.

Not only are solid majorities in support of single-payer and against the criminal war in Iraq, the American people now understand the relationship between the anti-war movement and the single-payer national healthcare movement. As a result, the political energy of the people is qualitatively higher than it has ever been since ordinary people dismantled Jim Crow segregation and ended the criminal Viet Nam war.

History is now on our side. But, we can not rest. You can help. Demand that Congress now hold full Congressional Hearings on the Health Crisis in the United States.

Specifically, urge speaker of the House, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, Congressman, Charles Rangel D-NY); and Congressman, Pete Stark (D-CA), ranking Democrat on the House Ways and Means Health Committee, during April, the anniversary month of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; to hold full Congressional Hearings on an Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Residents in the United States (HR 676).

Also contact Healthcare-Now or call us at 1-800-453-1305 so that you can learn of ways in which you can directly support and participate in the historic national human rights movement to guarantee that all residents in the United States have comprehensive world class healthcare and healthcare insurance coverage from cradle to grave.

This is our time in history. Let’s seize it.

Here’s how: For an inspirational 7 minutes, see this little video of Congressman John Conyers talking about how we can win single payer.

Mr. Sankofa is a human rights public policy specialist and community organizer. He is a national organizer for Healthcare-Now. He is also the strategic planning consultant for the National Coalition of Blacks for Reparations in America, Legal Defense, Research, and Education Fund. As a former trial attorney, specializing in complex institutional reform litigation, Mr. Sankofa, directed the AIDS Project of the National Prison Project of the ACLU Foundation. He is a graduate of Bowdoin College in Brunswick Maine and the Antioch School of Law. Raised in Washington, DC, Mr. Sankofa now lives in Brooklyn, New York. Click here to contact Ajamu K. Sankofa, Esq. and Healthcare-NOW.

Click here to read any of the articles in this special BC series on Single-Payer Healthcare.