Health care reform has dominated the news for the last several months. Despite this, the media has done a terrible job explaining why we need reform. I've compiled a few key facts:
1. Americans spend more on health care than any other nation and yet we don’t live longer or have better health outcomes (we rank 50th in life expectancy; 33rd or 46th in infant mortality, depending on whether you ask the UN or CIA; and the worst in preventable deaths due to treatable conditions out of 19 leading industrialized nations). In 2000, the World Health Organization ranked the US health care system as the 37th best in the world.
2. Over the last decade, employer-sponsored health insurance premiums have increased 131%. Employees have seen their share of job-based coverage premiums increase at nearly the same rate during this period, jumping from $1,543 to $3,515. As a result, people are being forced to cut back on health care costs by putting off doctors' visits (28% of patients surveyed) or procedures (22%), declining tests (20%), skipping filling prescriptions (20%), and taking expired meds (15%) or skipping doses (15%). Without reform, the average family premium is projected to rise to over $22,000 in the next decade.
3. Nearly one million Americans go bankrupt every year because of medical expenses. According to a study in the American Journal of Medicine, 62% of all bankruptcies in 2007 were partly the result of medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80% had health insurance. According to another study, about 1.5 million families lose their homes to foreclosure every year due to unaffordable medical costs. That's right, people who have health insurance are losing their homes and life savings because they cannot afford medical care for themselves or their children.
4. The United States is the only wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care. The Census Bureau estimated that 45.7 million Americans under age 65 did not have insurance in 2007. Without reform, at least 6.9 million more Americans will be uninsured in 2010. Another 25 million are underinsured. Considering the millions who have lost their jobs during the recession, these figures are surely higher now. The result? According to a Harvard study, 45,000 Americans die every year (one person every 12 minutes) because of a lack of health insurance coverage. That means if you don't have insurance you have a 40% higher risk of death than someone who does. What does this say about our society?
5. In 45 states across the country, insurance companies are allowed to deny coverage to people with a pre-existing medical condition. In fact, 21% of people who apply for non-employer-based health insurance get turned down, charged a higher price or offered a plan that excludes coverage for their pre-existing condition. Relatively minor conditions like hay fever, asthma, previous sports injuries, and even a history of domestic violence or if your 2 month old baby is overweight, can trigger high premiums or denials of coverage. Further, people with insurance are currently subject to rescission if they become ill. That means they can drop your coverage on the grounds that you had an undisclosed pre-existing condition (often for bullshit reasons).
6. If you have private insurance you like, you can keep it - and your costs will go down. What if you lose your job or don't get coverage from your employer? Reform will allow access to affordable care through a public option (a government-run insurance program like Medicare). Although I would much rather have a single-payer (universal health care) system, the public option is the best plan under debate to increase access to health care and reduce costs. Because a public option would not seek to earn profits and would compete with private insurers, its creation will put pressure on insurance companies to reduce their prices.
7. Poll after poll has shown that a large majority of Americans want health care reform with a public option. Doctors are in favor of the public option. So what's the hold up? The insurance and pharma companies are spending $1.4 million a day to spread misinformation and lies about health care reform. Shockingly, there are 6 insurance company lobbyists for every member of Congress. Additionally, the key members (which includes Democrats and Republicans) drafting the legislation are the ones getting the most "campaign donations" (read: bribes) from insurers and pharma.
We can't let insurance companies, Big Pharma, Republicans and others with a vested interest in the status quo use misinformation to derail efforts to lower healthcare costs for all Americans. They did it before. The stakes are simply too high to let them succeed again.
What can you do? Call or email your elected officials and demand that they vote for health insurance reform with a public option (anyone can spare the 2 min it takes to do this). Sign petitions (here, here and here). Attend rallies. Talk to your friends, families and neighbors. Support Keith Olbermann's call to put a free clinic every week in the cities of the states of the six shameful senators who are blocking reform. Please do something. Time is running out.
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