America spends more on health care than it does on food.  Skyrocketing costs overburden health care providers, and America’s healthcare system is facing collapse. Can it be fixed?

Why do we hear so much about how well-off America is, yet our country has the highest number of uninsured citizens in the industrialized world?  Although the United States has the most expensive healthcare system in the world, about 50 million americans have no health insurance at all.  Healthcare is the country’s largest economic sector, accounting for over $2 trillion in annual expenditure nearly four times larger than national defense!

The "open market system" is failing us.  There are about 700,000 new bankruptcy filings each year because of medical bills.  No other developed nation on earth would let this happen.  About 20,000 americans die prematurely each year because they don’t have access to affordable care.  Sixteen percent of american citizens have no health insurance at all.  There are about 16 million americans who are classified as "under-insured".  What this means is that you think you have insurance coverage and you don't.  The thing that makes you sick might be the one thing that your insurance does not cover because of deductibles, exclusions, or pre-existing conditions. 

Despite these deplorable conditions the american health care system is the most expensive in the world.  In 1960 the United States spent only 5.2 percent of GDP on health care.  By 2004 that number had risen to 16 percent. At this point America spends more on health care than it does on food.  Over the last thirty years,Corporate America has applied its most effective business tactics to the task of purchasing the one commodity that's not supposed to be for sale: American democracy.the US health care system is extremely inefficient, and this inefficiency becomes more costly as the health care sector becomes a larger fraction of the economy.  The health care system, which is supposed to preserve and protect human life, is allowing thousands of Americans to die every year, mainly because of corporations, lobbyists and corrupt politicians. 

In 2003, HMOs (Heath Maintenance Organizations) nearly doubled their profits from the prior year, adding $10 billion to their bottom line.  That year, top executives at the 11 largest health insurers made a combined $85 million in one year.  In the first three quarters of 2004, HMO profits increased by another 33 percent.  The sheer numbers behind these profits are staggering.  In 2004, the four biggest health insurance companies reported $100 billion in revenues.  That's $273 million a day, every day, 365 days of the year.

The health industry spent more than $300 million on lobbying politicians in 2003.  They spent another $300 million on campaign contributions to politicians since 2000.  Is this going to give us good health care?  Washington insiders know that one of the easiest ways to kill a good idea is to invoke Americans' fear of a slow, bloated government bureaucracy.  In 2004, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan attacked President Bush's opponents for wanting "a government-run system, where the taxpayers will pick up more of the tab" for health care.  Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, previously head of a health industry lobbying firm, declared that "the American people have rejected a government-run system of national health care."  Actually most Americans have not done so, especially those who are struggling to pay massive medical bills.   According to a nationwide ABC/Washington Post poll in 2003, "Americans by a 2-1 margin, 62-32 percent, prefer a universal health insurance program over the current private employer-based system."  These number are most certainly going to go up as the the unemployment rate trends up.  As jobs go, so does health benefits.

American health care tends to be divided into two groups, outsiders and insiders.  Insiders have good insurance, receive everything modern medicine can provide, no matter how expensive. Outsiders, who have poor insurance or none at all, receive very little.  One study found that among Americans diagnosed with certain kinds of cancer, those without insurance were 70 percent more likely than those with insurance to die over the next three years.  Not all business leaders are against health care reform.  For instance, Ford, GM and Chrysler all endorsed Canada's health care system, where the government funds health care for all citizens.  Similarly, a poll of Michigan small businesses found that 63 percent supported creating a universal health care system, even if it required tax increases.  Could it be that these executives understand that they deal with union auto workers and the cost of insuring their health car needs to be input into the costs of producing each car?  Maybe the auto industry is sensitive to health care costs because they understand that these costs make their cars less competitive in the market.

How We Got Here

World War II caused a labor shortage, but employers were subject to wage controls that prevented them from attracting workers by offering higher wages.  Health benefits, however, weren't controlled, and so became a way for employers to compete for workers.  Once employers began offering medical benefits, they also realized that it was a form of compensation workers valued highly because it protected them from risk.

24% of health care cost goes to administration.  According to a study by top experts in 2005, "the United States wastes more on private health-care bureaucracy than it would cost to provide health care to all its uninsured."  As the World Health Organization noted, 24 cents of every dollar Americans spend on private health insurance goes to "administrative" expenses. That is everything from filling out and processing insurance paperwork to padding HMO executives' salaries.

Retroactive cancellations:  HMO's Pay Bonuses To Executives For Disqualifying You For Health Insurance Coverage

An investigation by the Los Angeles Times suggests that a California health plan was setting employee goals and paying bonuses partly based on how many individual policyholders they could cancel and how much money was saved by the cancellations. A widespread and controversial practice known as "rescission" has caused problems for Health Net a certain HMO. 

HMO's are not looking out for you.  Nearly a year ago, an arbitration judge awarded $9 million to Patsy Bates, a California hair salon owner whose coverage from the HMO Health Net was recinded after she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  The rescission forced her to suspend her chemotherapy treatments for several months.  Her case was one of 1,600 rescissions that helped Health Net save $35.5 million over several years, according to trial documents. The trial also revealed that Health Net paid bonuses to an employee based in part on how many rescissions she carried out.  Amercians need to ask themselves if that's what we want.  Do we want business managers screwing around with our health care, our very lives?

Callifornia State officials said they levied fines against Health Net after finding that this company misled investigators about these recission bonuses on two occasions during interviews at the company's headquarters this fall.  Recission can leave sick patients with crushing medical bills and no way to obtain needed treatment.  This is AFTER they have bought health insurance and paid premiums for it.  You can in American be led to believe that you have insurance when you do not.

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