To the editor:
Martin Luther King said, “Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane.” Pope Francis says, “It is vital that government leaders and financial leaders take heed and broaden their horizons, working to ensure that all citizens have dignified work, education and health care.” Wisdom supports that universal single-payer health care is morally the right thing to do.
Comparisons of health costs as a percentage of GDP demonstrate that the United States spends nearly twice as much on health care as Canada and other industrialized countries. Worldwide economies shows that universal single-payer health care is economically the right thing to do.
The U.S. is not getting increased quality for the extra costs we pay. General Colin Powell said, “I have benefited from universal health care in my 55 years of public life … Every country I’ve visited, every developed country, they have universal health care.” A PBS News Hour report shows that the United States lags behind other OECD nations in number of physicians per person, number of hospital beds per capita, life expectancy, and other indicators of health care quality. Worldwide experience with universal single-payer health care shows that it is the right thing to do for better outcomes and quality of care.
When I asked my state senator to please support a single-payer law for Maine, he said he couldn’t because it would require a tax to support socialized medicine which is bad medicine, producing poor quality and long waiting lists. So if it is bad medicine why would both state and federal legislators vote to use tax dollars to provide socialized medicine for themselves? And if it works for them, why object to it for the rest of us? Could it be that, like in so many areas of legislation, the reason they won’t support it for all of us is that they are too beholden to funding and lobbying interests of for-profit insurance and other health care industries?
The Affordable Care Act was an attempt to wed profit interests to universal care. It remains to be seen how much this law will improve things, but so far, it looks like this attempt fails in doing the right thing. It fails to be truly universal, leaving too many still unable to afford insurance or willing to pay a penalty rather than the premium. It does nothing to reduce the costs of health care that currently go to providing profits. Though its focus on prevention is a hopeful plus of the ACA, it remains to be seen how the law as a whole will improve overall quality in care and outcomes.
The same failure to do the right thing exists in Maine’s failure to expand Medicaid and in the current state law with continuing problems of affordability, access, and quality. On Monday, Jan. 9, at 1 p.m., in Room 222 of the Cross Building (Statehouse), Augusta, the Joint Committee on Insurance and Financial Services will hear public testimony on LD 1345, “An Act To Establish a Single-payer Health Care System To Be Effective in 2017.” Citizens may testify in person or submit written testimony to Sen. Geoff Gratwick, MD, 100 State House Station, Augusta, ME 04333. We need to urge the legislature this time, in this place, with this bill, to do the right thing.
Alice Bolstridge
Presque Isle
