{"id":1246,"date":"2007-02-12T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2007-02-12T15:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/universal-health-care-must-become-a-top-priority\/"},"modified":"2007-02-12T09:01:00","modified_gmt":"2007-02-12T15:01:00","slug":"universal-health-care-must-become-a-top-priority","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/02\/universal-health-care-must-become-a-top-priority\/","title":{"rendered":"Universal health care must become a top priority"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>By Dr. James \u201cJim\u201d Kadlecek<\/span> <\/p>\n

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\u201cIf criminals have a right to a lawyer, I think working Americans have a right to a doctor.\u201d – Harris Wofford<\/p>\n

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It is one of the great failures of American public policy that we do not have universal health care. <\/p>\n

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At the risk of repeating arguments that most readers have heard before:<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Nearly every industrial society in the world, except the United States<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, provides universal health care.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 A healthy workforce is a more productive workforce.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 We are a wealthy country and can afford it.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Providing a universal system would probably be less costly that the existing non-system, which is duplicative and inefficient.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 The current arrangement is horrendously expensive, eating up an increasing amount of the consumer dollar. Some 14 percent of spending is on health care.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Access to health care should not be based on one\u2019s financial status.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 If we can provide free public education to all citizens, shouldn\u2019t we also provide free health care?<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Quality of care is now being sacrificed to the demands of insurance providers: Since they have the money, they often dictate (limit) treatment.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Health care providers depend largely on government programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, anyway.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 If we believe in equity, then all should have equal access to health care.<\/p>\n

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\u2022 Morally, health care should be available to all. It\u2019s the right thing to do.<\/p>\n

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Problem affects working-class families<\/span><\/p>\n

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So who defends the existing, complex non-system? Not surprisingly, those who benefit from it \u2013 insurance companies, some doctors, private hospitals. And then there are those who are fortunate enough to have good insurance coverage, paid for by someone else \u2013 usually an employer or the government \u2013 so they don\u2019t see a problem. <\/p>\n

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But it is a problem, and it\u2019s eating away at the workforce and often preventing working families from getting care when they need it. <\/span>In Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place>, it is estimated that some 40 percent of the population has no health insurance coverage.<\/p>\n

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Keep in mind who we are talking about. It\u2019s not the elderly, because they have access to Medicare. It\u2019s not the very poor on social assistance, because they have access to Medicaid. It\u2019s not those who work for government or for the major employers such as the university, because those organizations provide good insurance to their employees.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

No, it\u2019s the working population, the folks who are farm workers or workers in restaurants, service businesses and retail stores. It\u2019s the employees of most small businesses, and part-time workers. These are the people who make our economy function, and they are the most vulnerable to sickness and the least able to pay for the costs.<\/p>\n

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Current options are limited<\/span><\/p>\n

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What happens when local working people who have no insurance need health care? Well, there are some options: They can go to La Clinica or Ben Archer clinics, which are subsidized with federal funding. If they need hospital care, the county does provide funding, mostly to Memorial<\/st1:placename> Medical<\/st1:placename> Center<\/st1:placetype><\/st1:place>, for people who are \u201cindigent\u201d or \u201cuninsured.\u201d Some of that funding comes from the federal sole provider program and some from the set-aside proceeds of the sale of MMC three years ago.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

With the current pressures on the federal budget, no one can be assured that the indigent funds will be continued. The $19 million set aside for \u201cexpanded care\u201d to the uninsured runs out later this year, and while the owners of MMC (whoever they are now) are pledged to continue such care out of their own resources, some of us are very skeptical that a profit-oriented private hospital is going to absorb over $6 million each year in free care. We suspect they will find a way to avoid delivering those services.<\/p>\n

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Does the county have a fallback plan when uninsured, working families start complaining (as some are already) that they are being shunted over to Thomason<\/st1:placename> Hospital<\/st1:placetype> in El Paso<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>? <\/span>This writer asked that question of the county manager more than a year ago, and he promised an answer, which has yet to be forthcoming. The bottom line is that some 75,000 Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> residents are at constant risk, with no real assurance that they can get the care they need when they need it.<\/p>\n

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While Gov. Bill Richardson has provided strong leadership on some issues, he has disappointed many of us by not making proposals like NewMexicare a priority. What he might do if he were elected president is a question mark, but we do know that he has not taken the lead on this issue in New Mexico<\/st1:place><\/st1:state>. Perhaps he has been deterred from doing so by lobbying from those in the medical establishment who gain from the existing system.<\/p>\n

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However, there is a glimmer of hope at the national level, since most presidential hopefuls are talking about providing some sort of universal care. Even President Bush suggested a plan in his recent State of the Union address. It was a very lame idea that would help only 3 or 4 percent of the 45 million Americans who currently have no health coverage, but at least he acknowledged the problem. That\u2019s some progress, even though we all know he is doing anything he can to distract the American public from his failed Iraq<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> policies. <\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

It is a tragic failure when a powerful, wealthy country does not provide equal access to basic health care for the workers of our society. We need to get angry and insist that our representatives correct this massive injustice. It must be a top priority.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Kadlecek has lived in Do\u00f1a<\/st1:placename> Ana<\/st1:placename> County<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> since 1996, served in the Colorado Legislature, and holds a doctorate in public administration. He\u2019s the author of a recently released book, \u201cCapitol Rape,\u201d published by Barbed Wire Publishers of Las Cruces, and is a monthly columnist for Heath Haussamen on New Mexico Politics. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Dr. James \u201cJim\u201d Kadlecek \u201cIf criminals have a right to a lawyer, I think working Americans have a right to a doctor.\u201d – Harris Wofford It is one of the great failures of American public policy that we do not have universal health care. At the risk of repeating arguments that most readers have […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kadlecek-columns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1246"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1246\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}