In discussing Community Health Care to this point I’ve placed it in opposition to our traditional health care system, which revolves around a corporate insurance system. I’ve mentioned that with our corporate insurance system we are 38th in the world in life expectancy, while spending 50% more per capita on health over the second most expensive health care system in the world. Those are the extra costs incurred from paying corporate bookies and stockholder gamblers in addition to actual health care providers.
Yet this begs the question of how do you fund a health care system without the add-on costs of health insurance. The model that started this all was part of federal health reform related to Medicare. Does this hint at moving towards a single payer system?
That would not be my first choice. Rather, I’m more in favor of a community health care system being the jurisdiction of a community, much like a public education system. There is some movements afoot in regards to this already. When we hiked through Virginia City, Nevada a plaque on their community center wall stated they have a goal of providing affordable health care for all. Such a noble aspiration will be achievable only through a system that is much more like public education and without corporate insurance.
Not every community can provide everything needed for every kind of illness out there. Magnet and charter schools serve to expand educational opportunities; just so, health care does not to be limited to the means of a single community.
Ah, but what about the increase in property or local taxes for such a community-based system? Obviously, the increase in taxes would be much less than the decrease in health insurance premiums being paid by individuals overall, since those premiums have to support much more than just health care (bookies and gamblers who don’t provide actual health care). In other words, individuals would pay far less out of their pocket than they do now.
Or we could just go on being the 38th country in the world with our life expectancy while paying far, far more for health care than any other country.
I am in favor of universal health care. I don’t like the fact that insurance companies make a profit on something so fundamental and necessary as health care. Former governor Dean of VT says that by paying doctors a salary, the need for the extra testing would be cut back since the doctors would not be paid for extra procedures. Makes sense to me and sounds like a good place to start!
Greetings Sandra,
Thanks for sharing. Here’s something to your point. On our journey we met a pastor who started out as a doctor. As an intern he was treating a patient and could determine from xrays what was wrong. His superiors ordered him to do more tests, coming right out and saying that they needed to do that to pay for their expensive equipment. That’s precisely why he’s now a pastor instead of a doctor.