“Doesn’t have to be this way” says physician Andrew Coates

From Coates' Government shutdown, disconnect on health care

Editing, excerpt by Carolyn Bennett

Doesn’t have to be this way

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“Too many undignified medical encounters take place simply because

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money is involved ─ where it never should be in the first place,” Coates writes. But “the debate in Washington … proves the thesis that there’s a 1 percent and a 99 percent.”

On one side of the debate in Washington, “a right wing believes there should be no government intervention whatsoever in health care; this side believes that some individuals deserve to be sick, even deserve to die – deserve to go without health care because of the choices they may have made in their lives.”

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On the other side of this debate – “among the ‘left’ of the 1 percent – there is an idea that any government intervention could be a good thing, even if it is government intervention to manipulate a profit-driven health insurance marketplace in a way that recruits more customers for private health insurance companies.”

While Washington ideologues are whittling on about where government should be and what should be its role, the fact of the matter is, Coates says,

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the government is already profoundly involved in the health care system, a majority of health spending in the United States of America comes from taxpayers; a majority of spending already comes from public sources.

“So the debate makes little sense” and calls to mind “2009 when

…the right wing was yelling ‘Government takeover!’ and

…the left wing was yelling ‘Public option!’ and

Andrew D. Coates
M.D., F.A.C.P

…neither the right nor the left was talking about something that was included in the president’s Affordable Care Act.

Coates sums up

“I believe this country has great promise as a democracy and that no modern democracy can afford to neglect the health needs of its population,” he writes.

“We have everything it takes for a first-class, outstanding medical system for every person in the United States. We have wonderful nurses. We have excellent and highly trained doctors. We have terrific research and hospitals ready to go.

“What we do not have is public control over the financing. Heath care costs rise, and rise again. Doctors are blamed, technology is blamed, all kinds of excuses are made; but in the final analysis nobody will state the real cause underlying it all.” But underneath it all is this, he says:

Health care is becoming an industry.

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It’s becoming a business.

And there are myriad new forces within the system, each trying to extract their tiny profit; and this drives all of us crazy.

It also drives prices and costs ever upward.

“It doesn't  have to be this way,” Coates affirms, “and everybody knows this….” The 99 percent will continue in the short run to have undignified experiences with grave consequences “But in the long run,” he says, “we will together build the kind of health system worthy of us as a people.”

Sources and notes

“The government shutdown and the disconnect on health care” (Andrew D. Coates, M.D., F.A.C.P., WAMC Northeast Public Radio) posted Friday, October 11, 2013, http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/october/the-government-shutdown-and-the-disconnect-on-health-care

See also “Glitches” By Andrew D. Coates, M.D., F.A.C.P., WAMC Northeast Public Radio, posted on: Friday, October 25, 2013, http://www.pnhp.org/news/2013/october/glitches

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“The ‘glitches’ in purchasing private health insurance arise from the complexity and bureaucracy of our private insurance system ─ with hundreds of insurers, thousands of plans, state-by-state as well as federal regulation and the need to mine new databases in order for the federal government to subsidize premium payments for Americans who have incomes below 400 percent of poverty” Coates writes:

We stand on one side of a chasm.

We stand amid a dysfunctional health system that fails to serve tens of millions of people.

On the other side of the chasm in this wealthy country another world is waiting.

“Signing people up for private insurance incrementally will not get us across that chasm. If we relax our focus from the narrow dime-sized view and look around us we will realize that we cannot leap that chasm in several jumps. We need fundamental change.”

Dr. Andrew Coates practices internal medicine in upstate New York and is president of Physicians for a National Health Program. His commentaries are broadcast online at http://wamc.org/post/coates-political-divisions-harm-health

PNHP

The Physicians for a National Health Program of more than 18,000 members and chapters across the United States is a single-issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program.

Advocating for reform of the U.S. health care system since 1987, PNHP has educated physicians and other health professionals about the benefits of a single-payer system ─ including fewer administrative costs and affordable health insurance for the 50 million Americans who have none. PNHP performs ground breaking research on the health crisis and the need for fundamental reform, coordinates speakers and forums, participates in town hall meetings and debates, contributes scholarly articles to peer-reviewed medical journals, and appears regularly on national television and news programs advocating for a single-payer system. Members and physician activists work toward a single-payer national health program in their communities.

PNHP is the only national physician organization in the United States that is dedicated exclusively to implementing a single-payer national health program.

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