In addition to having 46 million people without health insurance, Examiner’s Ryan Witt says statistics from the Congressional Budget Office suggest that, by the time I’m 60 and my children are in their 30s, 33 percent of the average American’s income will be set aside for health care.
Whether my kids don’t have health care or they’re forking out one-third of their yearly income on it, I certainly don’t consider either to be part of the American dream.
If 46 million people without health insurance and 25 million more underinsured doesn’t bother you, then the notion that your children will be paying 33 percent of their income towards health care in just 40 years should make you worry.
Subscribing to the preaching of Glenn Beck may have you thinking that the United States doesn’t need any sort of drastic reform. He’s cried on many occasions that political leaders from Australia, England, and Canada all have sought health care in the United States.
But the facts are that Americans spend about $6,500 per capita, where as Canadians spend $3,500, Brits spend $3,100, and the Japanese spend $3,000. The United States spends almost double per capita on health care than all any of these countries, but the U.S. lags in both life expectancy and infant mortality. On top of that, the 2000 World Health Report ranked America’s health care system at 37th.
Don’t worry. Though Americans may have 99 problems with health care, communist Cuba ain’t one. It was ranked 39th.
Another “fair and balanced” suggestion is tort reform. However, estimates show that tort reform would only cut health care expenditures by 1.5 percent, which would not do anything to bend the curve on health care costs.
A future doctor reminded me that we cannot forget that this bill is an opportunity to make great strides towards better health care, but it is still just one stride. Making healthcare affordable is necessary, but it’s also important to strive toward quality health services.
Last July, 15,000 nurses in the U.S. were surveyed. 70 percent of the nurses said they were understaffed, and 49.5 percent reported that they “would not feel confident having someone close to them receive care in the facility in which they work.”
But with the best health system and services in the world, if people cannot afford health care, they cannot get health care. That is why making health care affordable is a pertinent first step toward reform.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates the House bill would pay for itself on top of decreasing the deficit by $130 billion in the first ten years. Within twenty years it’s projected to decrease the deficit by $1.2 trillion.
More importantly though, it would extend affordable coverage to 32 million people current don’t have health care. And this bill would cease denying coverage because of pre-existing conditions.
It would expand Medicare’s prescription drug benefits, and allow young adults to stay on their parents’ insurance plan through the age of 26. These types of statistics make it fiscally irresponsible not to vote for this health care reform.
Douglas McIntyre of 24/7 Wall Street said of the CBO’s estimates, “The Democrats have fought for healthcare reform for a year. It appeared that they only need one event to tip the scales in their direction, and they have gotten it.”
By now the House has exhausted their 72-hour review period and voted on whether or not to pass this bill. If this bill passed, the Democratic Party has passed one of the largest pieces of social legislation since Medicare in 1965. This complete lack of bipartisanship from could be detrimental to the Republican Party if this bill has the notable impact that both Social Security and Medicare have.
It took Democrats nearly a decade to recover from the health care battle in 1994, so if this bill fails, it could be as bad as watching Lady Gaga’s “Telephone” video on repeat come November.
Michael Patrick is a sophomore majoring in political science.
