We will institute free,
comprehensive, quality health care, including informed
and unimpeded access to the full range of family planning
and reproductive services.
Is affordable, high quality health care a right of all
Americans or is it a privilege subject to all the
vagaries of the age, race, income and residency
differences in our society? Our Labor Party platform
states that health care is a critical social good which
demands that collective interests prevail over private
gain. It calls for:
- Universal entitlement; freedom to choose doctors
and health professionals
- Single-payer insurance, publicly administered and
funded
- Full funding of public health programs
- Funding for research that serves the public good
- Informed choice and unimpeded access to a full
range of family planning and reproductive
services
- A role for health care consumers and workers in
public planning and oversight bodies
Why Health Care Reform Is An Important Part of
the Labor Party Program
The United States is unique among the industrialized
nations of the world in the nature of its health care
system--not only do we lack a national health plan, but
health care in America has become a profit-driven
industry controlled by giant insurance companies and
managed-care conglomerates. The statistics and problems
reflect a continuing and escalating crisis: shrinking
coverage now leaves 42 million Americans without any
health insurance whatsoever; companies and employees are
increasingly at odds as employers shift costs and cut
coverage while workers fiercely resist cutbacks in
hard-won benefits; any viable reform proposal is met with
extreme industry attacks and million dollar opposition ad
campaigns. And health care leaps toward oligopoly as one
giant merger follows another. In 1981, roughly 18 percent
of all HMOs were for-profit. By 1995, the market share of
investor-owned, for-profit HMOs was 70 percent.
The details of health care mergers show how corporatized
health care values shareholder profits over patient care.
For example, the recent merger of insurance giant Aetna
and U.S. Healthcare has created an entity that controls
access to health care for one in every twelve Americans.
U.S. Healthcare is known for rewarding doctors for giving
skimpy care and penalizing them for referring patients to
specialists, emergency rooms or hospitals. It generated
higher profits in 1995 than nearly any other for-profit
HMO and took 25 percent out of every premium dollar for
its outrageous CEO salaries, profits and bureaucracy.
U.S. Healthcare CEO Leonard Abramson made nearly $1
billion in profit from the merger--money that could and
should be used for the uninsured. Wall Street analysts
predict that the merged company will achieve profits $300
million higher than what they could have earned
separately. We all know that these profits will come from
downsizing, reducing and denying care, and higher prices
as oligopolistic pricing begins to assert itself.
Recently, 1996 PNHP (Physicians for a National Health
Program) President Dr. Susan Steigerwalt discussed the
health care at for-profits, particularly at U.S.
Healthcare:
At U.S. Healthcare and other for-profits, each doctor
is given a certain amount of money for each patient every
month, to take care of that person and "keep them
healthy." This is called capitation. But if you
refer your patients to specialists more often than what
the company considers to be acceptable, or if your
patient goes to the emergency room more than they think
is acceptable, then a portion of the money that they pay
you is withheld. Conversely, if your patients don't go to
the emergency room and your average per month cost for
specialty care is low, you'll receive a bonus at the end
of the year, We call it "fee-for-non-service."
So, taking care of the same group of patients, you could
either make no money, theoretically, or up to $250,000 ,
depending on how you practice.
Thus, as consumers of health care, we are left to deal
with the results of health care "reform" as
defined by conservatives, our government and the
insurance industry. This includes managed care abuses,
downsizing resulting in decrease of quality of care,
increasing number of uninsured, the massive explosion of
for-profit corporations controlling the delivery of
health care services, doctors revolting due to
insurance/managed care companies telling them how to
practice, growing cost shifting and decreases in
benefits.
Steps to Take
Whenever and however you can, add the Labor Party's voice
to the demand for a health care system worthy of the
name. Join and support single-payer groups in your area,
write letters to the editor calling for real reform, meet
with elected officials, speak up and speak out.
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