Healthcare For All - South Carolina: What's the Deal?

Healthcare For All - South Carolina is a new state-wide chapter of Physicians for a National Health Program. 

Physicians for a National Health Program is a 25-year-old national organization committed to universal health care for all Americans. Everybody in, nobody out -- something that citizens in every other industrialized nation already have, at significantly less per capita cost and with more preventive care emphasis, I might add.

PNHP consists of 18,000 doctors, allied health professionals, and concerned citizens that support HR 676 in the U.S. Congress, legislation that would establish "Improved & Expanded Medicare" for all Americans -- publicly-funded, privately-delivered. Not "socialized medicine." 

Yes, here we are in 2013 and health care reform, from President Obama's Affordable Care Act to Paul Ryan's Medicare vouchers, remains an "above the fold" issue for most Americans.

A journalist for a prominent newspaper in South Carolina recently wrote:

"Giving someone health insurance does not improve their health. That's been proven time and time again". 

Has it? Based on that assertion, how many state and national lawmakers do you think would agree to giving up their publicly-funded health insurance?  Do you believe SC HHS Director Tony Keck when he says that having SC Medicaid insurance coverage does not improve a person's (or a household's) health? What's your take on the "determinants of health" in our state?   

As a country, we now find ourselves captive to a profit-driven, "sick-care" system controlled by BIG insurance, BIG pharma, BIG medical suppliers. We have supply-driven "health care", not a free market. We are perpetuating post-WWII employment-linked health insurance well-beyond its usefulness -- even now to the point of dysfunctionality, and worse, injustice.      

Prominent health economists forecast that the federal Affordable Care Act will fall grossly short on controlling the serious problem of health care cost inflation in our country. Publicly-funded, privately-administered "improved & expanded Medicare for all" is the needed solution -- and here's why.

In the current U.S. healthcare "system", over 1,000 insurance companies offer a complex array of coverage plans; disgruntled physicians struggle daily with all the different private insurance "rules"; and, the administrative overhead of it all costs us as citizens almost $400 billion each year! That's enough "wasted money" to provide ongoing, accessible, affordable, quality healthcare (both preventive and sick care) for all 48 million Americans who are currently uninsured (i.e., priced out of buying private health insurance, and not eligible for publicly-funded healthcare, such as federal Veterans Benefits, federal Medicare, or state Medicaid) – and sooner rather than later!

Analysis by the Congressional Budget Office confirms that HR 676 would create a finance structure that would significantly control costs while covering every American and not raising taxes. No other plan -- not from the Democrats nor the Republicans -- even comes close.

Yes, it is difficult, particularly in our state, to get intelligent dialogue on health care financing.

So, Healthcare For All - South Carolina also headlines that there is a moral imperative here  -- saving 45,000 lives each year in our country for lack of affordable, accessible, quality health care. That's 2,500 South Carolinians each year. Where is the justice in that? 

You say, the South Carolina faith community should be speaking out -- where are they? Just wait -- grassroots efforts are under way. Stay tuned.  

Accordingly, Healthcare For All - South Carolina is supporting Medicaid expansion -- "new Medicaid" throughout our state. The "Essential Benefits" are at the heart of the new Medicaid’s health equity and economic sensibility.   

On the other hand, Governor Haley's "Plan B" is short-sighted and limited to rural areas; even worse, it sends billions of South Carolinians' federal taxes to other states when the struggling working class in our state needs access to health care to continue to be productive in these recessionary times! While Healthcare for All - South Carolina strongly believes that America will not have universal access, improved quality of care, and cost containment without a Single-Payer system, we do accept that until that time we must do what is right and possible for the most vulnerable among us. The "new Medicaid" has provisions that make it far superior in comparison to "current Medicaid" -- broader, cost-saving, preventive services and mental health services, just to name two -- and Governor Haley has it "wrong" that we can't afford to expand Medicaid. As the saying goes, "we can't afford not to"!  

Equity and fairness...  Access, quality, and cost-prevention / cost-containment...  That's what the "health care debate" in our state needs to be all about right now, with regard to "new Medicaid" expansion, and in 2014, with regard to the Single-Payer solution.

Learn more at:  www.pnhpSC.org, www.pnhp.org, and http://remedySC.com/