America's Health Crisis, Robert Reich

[Guest guest]

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/americas_health_crisis.php?dateid=3D20050418=

 

 

 

America's Health Crisis

Robert Reich

April 18, 2005

 

 

 

Robert B. Reich is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and

Economic Policy at Brandeis University, and was the secretary of labor

under former President Bill Clinton.

 

Medicare, the government's giant health care program for the elderly,

is heading toward bankruptcy much faster than Social Security. Its

future unfunded liabilities are seven times larger than Social

Security's. Social Security is projected to be in financial trouble

maybe four decades from now. Medicare's doomsday is right around the

corner, within the next 10 years.

 

Medicaid, the government's health care program for the very poor, is

also in trouble. Its costs are rising so fast that the White House now

proposes to whack it by $40 billion. But the nation's governors don't

want Medicaid cut. They don't want to face the specter of millions of

poor families with no other alternative but hospital emergency rooms,

at a far higher cost.

 

Meanwhile, a growing number of Americans lack health insurance. Ten

years ago, when Bill Clinton's proposal for universal health care

tanked, 38 million Americans lacked health insurance. Now, 44 million

are without it. And Americans who get health insurance through their

employer are suffering sticker shock as companies shift the escalating

costs onto their employees through higher co-payments, larger

deductibles and soaring premiums. Companies that can't do this are in

trouble. Unless General Motors get health care costs under control,

for example, it may not be around that much longer.

 

What to do? Use the government's huge bargaining clout to cut the

prices medical providers and suppliers charge=97as Wal-Mart does with

its suppliers. In addition, offer Americans the chance to buy basic

health insurance for a few hundred dollars a year=97a low cost made

possible because so many Americans would be in the same simple plan,

generating vast economies of scale. That way, far more Americans would

get regular checkups, and health problems could be prevented before

they occur. In other words, build a big voluntary program with a

single payer.

 

With the middle class squeezed by soaring health care costs, big

companies reeling under the pressure, and governors screaming, it's

the perfect time to tackle the nation's health care crisis. But

because this would require an active role for government, the Bush

administration is ideologically opposed. They know the nation can pay

attention to only one big domestic crisis at a time. So they're using

the fake crisis of Social Security to mask the real crisis of health care.

 

This commentary originally appeared on Marketplace, public radio's

only daily business news program, and is reprinted via a special

arrangement between TomPaine.com and Robert Reich. Marketplace is

produced by Minnesota Public Radio and is heard on 322 public radio

stations nationwide. More online at www.marketplace.org.