Health Care
Ideally, our health care system would deliver affordable and accessible health care to everyone. But we all know it doesn’t. In fact, over 16% of all Montanans are without health insurance. That’s about 155,800 Montanans waking up every morning hoping that today won’t be the day they get sick or have an accident.
The reason they don’t have health insurance is that they can’t afford it. Some people like to say it’s their own fault if they can’t make enough money to pay for health insurance. But we know that’s just not true. All of us have been hit by the double whammy of spiraling health insurance premiums and the economic meltdown. All of us have felt the growing bite health care takes out of our paychecks.
From 2000 to 2007 alone, health insurance premiums for Montana families increased by 88% but wages increased by only 16.2%. In other words, health care costs increased almost six times faster than wages. If we don’t fix this problem, health care costs will rise so much that they will break the economy. No, it’s not the fault of people who get sick and can’t afford care. But it will be our fault if we don’t do something to fix this problem.
The problem is that our health care system is geared to making huge profits for the health care industry instead of providing affordable and accessible health care to all Americans. Profit is good – it’s the driving force of the American entrepreneurial spirit. But in some cases the profit motive just doesn’t make sense.
I think all of us agree that things like national defense, homeland security, and the education of our children are so important that they shouldn’t be money-making operations. It’s the government’s job to provide these services. But for most everything else, we feel the private sector is better at providing goods and services, including health care.
But health care isn’t a luxury – it’s a matter of life and death. Why are senior citizens struggling to pay for medication? Why do we rank 35th in the world in infant mortality? Why is medical debt forcing more and more Americans into bankruptcy? Because our health care system, as it now operates, is geared to making a profit for insurance companies, pharmaceutical firms and medical suppliers. That’s just wrong.
When people don’t have access to adequate health care because it is too expensive, otherwise preventable and treatable conditions become chronic or fatal illnesses. And where do these chronically ill people go for help? They go to hospital emergency rooms where you, the taxpayer, ends up paying the bill. Is that the best we can do? I don’t think so.
Our current health care system has gotten so out of control that, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, about $700 billion in taxpayer dollars is wasted annually on unnecessary tests and procedures. That comes to about $2,300 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. PricewaterhouseCoopers estimates the total wasteful spending to be as much as $1.2 trillion, or $4,000 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. That’s more than half of the $2.2 trillion spent every year on health care in the United States.
So what is Denny Rehberg’s answer to this health care mess? He suggests giving Montanans tax incentives to join a gym. Seriously.
Join a gym? Will joining a gym help grandma with her broken hip? Will joining a gym put your cancer in remission? Will joining a gym give those 155,800 uninsured Montanans the peace of mind of knowing they don’t risk losing their homes or going bankrupt just because they got sick or had an accident?
We can do better.
As your congressman, I will fight for a universal health care program that delivers quality health care to all Montanans, the kind of public health care program that Denny Rehberg, as a member of Congress, enjoys but doesn’t want to share with the rest of Montanans.
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