Carrie's Corner

So I am sitting in my beach-front condo writing this as a storm rolls in after 6 days of sunny weather in Florida. The deadline for articles is Monday, so I have to get busy. Despite being on vacation we have watched the news each night, heard about the president's visit to Rio Rancho at which he was to talk about credit card issues, but isn't it interesting that the first question from the audience was about health care? A woman asked why Single Payer was "off the table." The answer is the political climate in Washington, DC. Between the "Big Pharma"--pharmaceutical manufacturers, and the insurance companies in the country, both of which have donated huge amounts of campaign funds to representatives and senators, there just isn't the will in the Congress to move against the groups who have provided the funds for their reelections. That despite the fact that recent polls show a majority of citizens would prefer a Single Payer plan with supplemental coverage for things not covered by the basic plan. President Obama did reply to the woman's question that a public / governmental plan [Think Medicare-for-all] will be offered along with the other pieces that will make health care coverage universal via private plans, and that people will be able to choose between the governmental plan or the private plans. We need to have health plans that will a) provide preventive services like yearly exams, pediatric exams, immunizations, mammography, colonoscopy for 50+ people, lab tests for anemia, kidney, liver, cholesterol, etc., b) acute care for illness, c) surgery to preserve life, function, mobility, d) catastrophic coverage for cancers, stokes, heart attacks requiring surgical interventions and others, e) long term care for Alzheimer's, ALS, and more, and f) disease management for diabetes, heart disease, COPD, asthma, and so forth. Sounds like an expensive proposition, doesn't it? But the US, as you well know, spends more on health care per capita than any other developed, industrialized country yet we have 10-20% uninsured, more who are underinsured (they may get insurance only part of the year, and the rest of the time have none, or they have one of those policies for $300/month for their family, but their "deductible" is $20,000, so they never use the insurance and rarely see the doctor or nurse practitioner.) One thing I haven't seen anything about is that the US Government must be able to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies to get the lowest possible price for drugs to be supplied via the private and public health plans; and let's get rid of the "donut hole" in Medicare Part D--that system just leads to those on Medicare going off or changing the way they take their medications when they cannot afford them.