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Onto Something: Health care reform is badly needed and help is in sight

Friday, February 3, 2006 6:36 AM CST

I've never understood why society is willing to pay for my son's education but not his health care. Personally, I'd prefer it the other way around. I can teach him to read and write, but I can't conjure the life-saving medicines and services he would need in serious illness or injury.

Like most people, I would prefer to pay my own way for everything. Unfortunately, it's a rare American who can truly afford to pay for his or her family's health care. Unlike education or even roads (which we pay for collectively) health care is the one thing every person in this society truly needs to survive.

So, it's a particular type of cruelty to let the market deliver medicine. If there is one place in America where "earning potential" or "profit margin" should not be a motivation, health care is it.

I disagree with those who believe the marketplace fosters innovation in the field. In the case of widgets, it seems to do just that. But instead of advancing medical cures for illness, the market encourages pharmaceutical companies (Washington's highest-spending lobby) and caregivers to keep people sick and spending money for the meds and services that help them live through illness.

If Americans can't swallow socialized medicine, then we are going to have to come up with something comparable and quick. Conservatives should agree that the current solution of sharing insurance costs with employers is bad for business. Can you imagine the economic explosion that would occur if health care was taken off the bargaining table? It's mind-boggling.

Reforming health care isn't just a matter of business, however; it's a matter of conscience. Our current system is dysfunctional at best and inhumane at worst.

With the suffocating increase in premiums over the last few years, the middle classes are falling into the pit of 45 million uninsured and another 60 million with shrinking benefits. Meanwhile, specialists have fled Southern Illinois and other rural areas where we and our loved ones so desperately need them.

Consider also the uninsurable: these are folks who have the audacity to be sick already.

Then there's the underinsured: people who are covered for a "catastrophic" event but cannot afford to pay out-of-pocket (and often don't) for the routine doctors' visits that could prevent that major health event. Health Savings Accounts, hyped by the president in his State of the Union, come with similar drawbacks. These "consumer-driven" health care plans result in more missed health care, higher out-of-pocket costs and lower satisfaction, a study by the Employee Benefit Research Institute found.

Any discussion of the current system cannot leave out our third-class citizens, aka Medicaid recipients, for whom doctors aren't reimbursed in full or on time. Likewise, aid recipients are accustomed to the waiting game. Honestly, are you aware that it takes an underprivileged child in Southern Illinois three months to have a prescription for glasses filled? At least now vision is covered. It wasn't always. The only thing that gives me pause about socializing medicine is the glib way our government administers what is socialized already.

Across the board, the stories of injustice, debt, bankruptcy and discrimination are mounting, and they're as close as your neighbor's front door.

Thankfully, someone is chronicling them: the Campaign for Better Health Care. This grassroots action group is taking testimonies across the state and discussing solutions. The campaign will do so in Carbondale from 4 to 6 p.m., Thursday, Feb. 9 at the Dunn-Richmond Center, 150 Pleasant Hill Road.

The forum is a preface to statewide hearings on health care reform under the Health Care Justice Act of 2004. The goal of the act is to grant all Illinoisans access to affordable, quality health care. The Campaign for Better Health Care, the state's largest health care coalition, helped pass the Health Care Justice Act. Go to the campaign's Web site at www.cbhconline.org for more information and the "health care injustice story of the month."

No matter where you stand on the health care debate, keep an eye on the campaign. This group has the potential to help Illinois become a national leader in health care reform - a charge that is long overdue. But more importantly, the campaign is clearly concerned with doing the right thing for the citizens of this state. That, my friends, is well worth the cost.

Marleen Shepherd is the lifestyles reporter for the Southern Illinoisan. She can be reached at marleen.shepherd@thesouthern.com.