For-Profit Healthcare is Killing Us
The for-profit structure of the U.S. healthcare system allows unnecessary death and suffering.
Have you ever known someone who has passed away because they delayed medical treatment due to cost, rationed their unaffordable medication, or went bankrupt due to medical bills? Well, you wouldn’t be alone. 45,000 Americans die every single year from lack of health coverage. Medical Bills bankrupt hundreds of thousands of Americans every year. Over 14 million Americans have lost their health insurance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Compared to other developed countries, the United States consistently ranks in the bottom percentiles of overall health outcomes while spending double per capita. For readers unaware of how for-profit healthcare operates or even believes that the U.S has the best healthcare in the world, these facts may be shocking. How can it possibly work like this?
To put it bluntly, health insurance companies make money by denying you coverage. The fewer insurance companies have to pay out in coverage claims, the more they can pocket for their shareholders while leaving you stuck with medical bills you likely can’t afford. Wendell Potter, a former healthcare executive who has blown the whistle on industry practices, said in an interview with Current Affairs:
“If you didn’t do your part to help the company meet Wall Street’s profit expectations, you’d be evaluated on that. You’re always held accountable. You don’t have to have a memo that comes from your boss saying that you’ve got to deny X number of transplants or do that, it’s just you know that if you want to get a bonus, if you want to get stock options, if you want to get a raise, you have to impress your superiors, you have to do your part to help the company achieve its ultimate objective, which is to meet Wall Street’s profit expectations.”
To cut down on costs while also expanding high-quality coverage to all Americans would require the removal of for-profit health insurance companies who overcharge and deny their clients for, in some cases, life-saving treatments. Our representatives should be structuring the healthcare industry to incentivize patients’ care, not worrying about shareholder profits while thousands of Americans are left to die every year. Like the one proposed by Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the implementation of a single-payer system would remove the for-profit middleman who price gouge Americans. Single-payer would allow doctors to give patients the treatments they need while not going bankrupt. Since the Healthcare Industry spent over $500,000,000 lobbying and spreading misinformation about American healthcare in 2019 alone, let’s take some time to debunk a few industry talking points.
The main industry talking point is one you have probably heard; “How are you going to pay for it?” Most Americans realize how expensive healthcare is, as most of the burden falls on the individual, and it’s a reasonable question to ask if we can afford it. Most studies say a single-payer Medicare for all system would cost anywhere from $3-$5 trillion per year. That may sound like a lot, but that’s what the healthcare industry wants you to think. Rarely do you ever hear how much our current healthcare system costs, which will reach $6.2 trillion per year by 2028. Does Medicare for all still sound that expensive?
There is a misleading claim your taxes would significantly increase if Congress passed a Medicare for all system. While it’s true that taxes may have to be raised slightly by congress to fund the program, the vast majority of Americans would instead save a significant amount of money because the legislation would abolish premiums, co-pays, and deductibles. According to economics professors, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, a 6% income tax would be enough to fund a Medicare for all system. That would lead to the most significant take-home pay raise in a generation. In 2016, the average health insurance premium for a family not receiving subsidies was 17% of their income.
What about those extremely long wait times you heard about in Canada from expanding healthcare to everyone? Well, Canada has a lack of medical specialists that contribute to their long wait times that the United States does not have. Countries like Germany, France, and Australia can provide affordable healthcare to all citizens and have wait times comparable or better than the United States. By nearly every metric, Medicare for all single-payer system would significantly improve the current system. It would save money, expand high-quality coverage to every citizen, improve pandemic preparedness, reduce prescription drug costs, increase collective bargaining, and save countless lives. Many physicians now support the legislation. Robert McLean, MD, MACP, president of the American College of Physicians, said in a statement:
“We believe that American health care costs too much; leaves too many behind without affordable coverage; creates incentives that are misaligned with patients’ interests; undervalues primary care and under invests in public health; spending too much on administration at the expense of patient care; and fosters barriers to care for and discrimination against vulnerable individuals.”
So if Medicare for all is so great, why hasn’t it been passed? As mentioned earlier, the healthcare industry spends an unbelievable amount of money telling you single-payer, which threatens their profits, would be too expensive and reduce care quality. The industry also uses that war chest to fund politicians’ political campaigns from the federal to local level who have views favorable to the industry. The House leadership of Nancy Pelosi, Steny Hoyer, and James Clyburn have taken over $2 million from the pharmaceutical industry in the last decade. Pelosi adviser Wendell Primus has said to Blue Cross Blue Shield executives that Democrats would be allies to the insurance industry in the fight against single-payer health care. President-elect Joe Biden was the top recipient of pharmaceutical industry donations during the 2020 presidential campaign, even more than Donald J. Trump received. When asked on a National T.V. interview if he would veto Medicare for all if it passed the Senate, Biden said:
“If they get that through, and by some miracle there was an epiphany that occurred, and some miracle occurred that said, okay, it’s passed, then you’ve got to look at the costs.”
It looks like money well spent. No one will fix our undeniably broken healthcare system until we educate the population and build the social pressure from outside to pressure Washington to make a change that benefits all Americans, not just special interest groups.
Not all hope is lost. Poll after poll shows over two-thirds of Americans now support Medicare for all, a percentage that has only grown as our healthcare system’s failures are more apparent during the pandemic. Many hospitals didn’t have the proper amount of PPE and ventilators stockpiled because it’s not a profitable practice. Medical bills for COVID-19 treatment have peaked at over $1 million, and millions of Americans have lost their health insurance after being laid off. But the fight isn’t over; we need to educate people on the state of the healthcare system and the solutions. We all need to do our part, from canvassing for progressive candidates to something as little as sharing an article like this one with friends and family. It makes it much more difficult for the healthcare industry to control public discourse and government policy with a well-educated public.
