America's Broken Health Care System

There are over 46 million uninsured Americans, representing about 16% of the population, more than in any other industrialized nation. Of those uninsured, 8.3 million are children, which is about one in ten children under 18. About 25% of people making under $25,000 are uninsured, as opposed to about eight percent of people making over $75,000. Minorities are much more likely to be uninsured than whites. Eighty percent of uninsured people are either working or come from a working family. The overall number of uninsured people is rising due mostly to a falling availability of employer-sponsored coverage.

The uninsured are less likely to obtain preventative care, more likely to receive poor treatment for chronic sickness, and more likely to put off needed medical care making the problem worse.

The reason employer-sponsored coverage is eroding is because insurance premiums are skyrocketing. Since 1999, employment-based premiums have risen 120%, compared to 44% inflation and 29% wage growth. The United States spends about 17% of its GDP on health care, compared to 10.9% in Switzerland, 10.7% in Germany, 9.7% in Canada, and 9.5 in France, all counties that provide health care to all of their citizens. Uninsured Americans incur over $40 billion in costs each year, 85% of which is payed by federal, state, and local governments.

About half of bankruptcies filed every year, somewhere around two million, are due to medical costs. Many of these people have health insurance, but are still forced to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket. Most Americans are one medical semi-catastrophe away from bankruptcy. Part of the problem is that doctors and hospitals are unwilling or unable to negotiate flexible payment options.

Polls show that Americans are deeply unsatisfied with the current health care system and support a single-payer system by about 2:1 margin.

There are more facts and stats like this all over the internet, but the upshot is that the United States has a health care crisis. Health care costs are rising faster than wages and inflation, so less and less people are able to afford health care, so more and more people are forced into Medicaid or no insurance, increasing costs exponentially and decreasing the overall health of the nation.

But, of course, these statistics fail to account for the human side of the health care problem. There are innumerable stories of good people being completely destroyed by what would otherwise have been preventable or treatable illnesses. Besides the toll being uninsured takes on health and in the pocketbook, there is the added emotional pressures of stress, anxiety, and depression.

This is a moral issue foremost. Every other industrialized country offers at least basic medical care to all its citizens, recognizing health care as a right, not a privilege. The United States has more wealth and opportunity than any other nation, but fails to provide for the basic health needs of all its citizens. We have the means to alleviate immense suffering by providing health care to every American and we are at a point where it is irresponsible not to.

There are certain objections to a universal, or single-payer, health care system. The main objection is the cost. Certainly there would be increased taxation to cover the cost of the system, somewhere in the billions of dollars. This cost is offset by no longer paying monthly premiums, fewer developmental losses for children, greater years of workforce participation for healthy adults, increased preventative care, lower demand on ER's, increasing the strength of local economies, and more. As noted above, industrialized nations who provide some level of health care to all its citizens actually pay less as a percent of GDP than the United States.

Another objection is that the United States has the best health care system in the world and that the free market is the best system, not government control which would degrade quality. The United States ranks 23rd in infant mortality and about 20th in overall mortality. The United States ranks between 50th and 100th in immunizations depending on the immunization. Overall the United States is 67th. The free market system we currently employ has costs rising out of control, coverage at an all time low, and the lowest satisfaction among users and doctors of any industrialized country.

Even if there was a slight decrease in perceived quality of care, or some longer waiting periods for non-essential medical care (like getting warts removed), how does that weigh against the benefit of having all Americans insured? This is a matter of values, I guess. I have a relative who has said that he would rather die of cancer as an uninsured than have a universal coverage system. I have a friend who, while not endorsing an American single-payer system, had cancer as a child in England and received top-of-the-line medical care which saved his life and cost his family nothing out of pocket (besides the taxes for the system to begin with), while families in similar situations here in America regularly lose everything they own to fight that battle. Would we rather wait longer for some medical services in order to guarantee coverage for all Americans, or keep the current system and excludes tens of millions?

If the argument is that we have to keep government out of health care, then it is assumed that it is acceptable to have about one in six people in the country without insurance, with disproportional representation by poor and minorities. The free market system simply will never cover everyone. There are no other alternatives. Charities and churches cannot and will never have the capacity to insure the poor.

If, on the other hand, we see health care as a moral issue, where we seek for equality for all Americans, including in our ability to be healthy, then the government must get involved. Government cannot solve all our problems, or even most of them, but it can be useful, and in the case of health care, essential.

The Book of Mormon teaches us to care for the sick:

27 And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely.

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30 And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need.

Alma 1: 27, 30. And:

37 For behold, ye do love money, and your substance, and your fine apparel, and the adorning of your churches, more than ye love the poor and the needy, the sick and the afflicted.

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39 Why do ye adorn yourselves with that which hath no life, and yet suffer the hungry, and the needy, and the naked, and the sick and the afflicted to pass by you, and notice them not?

Mormon 8: 37, 39. I am not saying that government-based universal health care is the only way to keep the commandment to tend to the sick, but it is a way and it does reach the most possible people.

I think we should want to provide adequate medical care to every American. The system we have right now is broken and does not have the potential to do so, so it is time for change. One proposal is President Obama's, which is not a single-payer system, but does have the potential to reach every American, and it worthy of our support.

Again, we can argue the costs and benefits, and hopefully will, but if we shift the focus to the families and individuals, and emphasize the right of all people to medical care, we come closer to the type of just and equal America that we can acheive.