Rationing is Not the Only Alternative
Our health care has been 'privatized' by profit-seekers.
By Dr. Ralph S. Bovard
Star Tribune
February 7, 2011
"Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in health care is the most shocking and inhumane." ~ THE REV. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.
In a recent commentary, Dr. Virginia Dale told readers that they must choose between universal health insurance and rationing.
As a physician, I agree that we must get health care costs down if we're going to achieve universal coverage, but I strongly disagree that the only way to do it is to ration.
There is another viable and proven option: a single-payer or regulated multipayer health care system, such as exists in every nation in the Organization for Economic Co-operation & Development except the United States and Mexico.
The average OECD nation spends 6 percent to 10 percent of GDP on health care; we spend 17 percent. Their per-person spending averages $3,000 to $5,000 a year, compared with $8,000 in the United States.
We could save huge sums -- more than enough to insure the uninsured -- by cutting the administrative waste and executive profit in our system, and by collective bargaining to lower the price at which drugs, devices and medical services are sold in this country.