Universal Health Care: It Doesn't Have to be So Complicated

Wouldn't it be great if our Constitution contained a line that said, "Every citizen has the right to health care. The state takes care of public health and provides the means of prevention and treatment."

Too far-fetched? Incredibly, that line is Article 31, Paragraph 1 of the new Iraqi Constitution that the US Government helped write. It guarantees basic health care to 25 million Iraqis, along with maternal and child health care, within a year of its adoption – paid for mostly with your tax dollars.

If the Bush Administration understands the importance of universal health care for 25 million Iraqis, why then does it block efforts to extend health care benefits to 46 million Americans who lack health care services in our country? If we can provide universal health coverage to all Iraqis within a year, why then have we spent decades debating this issue in Washington?

The debate over single-payer, universal health care should end because the fact is we already have it in this country: if you're over 65 you have Medicare. If you're a veteran, you have the VA. All the politicians who rail against single-payer, government-provided health insurance wouldn't dare propose dismantling the tried, true and trusted Medicare program, or the VA system of hospitals.

But I say what's good for GI Joe and Grammy is good for the rest of us. It's time to expand universal health care coverage to everyone.

You've heard all the arguments. America has the most expensive and least efficient health care system in the world. Every attempt at "reform" has failed to make it better. Employer- sponsored health care premiums have risen 73% since 2000. Heath care costs already exceed annual minimum-wage earnings and will continue to rise. The number of small business employers offering health care coverage is dropping, while prescription drug prices continue to skyrocket. One in seven Americans lack health insurance, nearly 46 million Americans, equal to the combined population of 24 states.

And you've heard all the arguments against it: that it would be too costly (according to the Institute of Medicine, insuring all Americans would actually save this country $380 billion a year, partly because we already pay for the health care of the uninsured who wait until they are in crisis and often receive their care in emergency rooms, the most costly form of care); that it will result in rationing procedures and medications (we're already rationing health care, only it's done by the insurance companies when they deny your claim); that it would set up a whole new government bureaucracy (as opposed to the huge medical/insurance/pharmaceutical bureaucracy that is responsible for ever-rising costs, declining quality of care and more people going without adequate health care).

Despite the obvious fact that our health care system is bankrupting businesses and individuals and causing thousands of untimely deaths, we talk and debate and argue. Meanwhile health care costs continue to rise and more people continue to suffer.

We have endless debates over the finer points of universal coverage instead of just getting the job done. There are any number of good solutions out there, like Rep. John Dingell's "Medicare for All Act." What's lacking is the will to get it done, to stand up to the insurance lobby and enact a universal health care coverage system that serves the people, not profits.

Consider that simple line in the Iraqi Constitution: "Every citizen has the right to health care." Now, take a look at a typical insurance form. I consider myself a person of reasonable intelligence, but I find nearly every piece of paper written by insurance companies bafflingly indecipherable. It's not a stretch to suggest it's deliberate – insurance companies are in the business not of providing coverage but in denying coverage. It's the only way they make money. So their claims forms and handouts are all dressed up in complex industry jargon so no one can understand what they are really up to.

It doesn't have to be that complicated. Basic, quality health care should be a right of all Americans, just the way it is for all Iraqis and for people in dozens of countries around the world. The arguments against universal health care simply don't stand up to scrutiny. When I'm elected to Congress, universal health care will be a top priority.