Ruminations of an Expatriate

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Dallas Morning News report, widely cited across the blogosphere, includes comments of McCain health care adviser John Goodman, who reports that there are no folks in the USA without health insurance. The report entitled “Texas still leads nation in rate of uninsured residents”, includes this

McCain adviser

But the numbers are misleading, said John Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis, a right-leaning Dallas-based think tank. Mr. Goodman, who helped craft Sen. John McCain’s health care policy, said anyone with access to an emergency room effectively has insurance, albeit the government acts as the payer of last resort. (Hospital emergency rooms by law cannot turn away a patient in need of immediate care.)

“So I have a solution. And it will cost not one thin dime,” Mr. Goodman said. “The next president of the United States should sign an executive order requiring the Census Bureau to cease and desist from describing any American – even illegal aliens – as uninsured. Instead, the bureau should categorize people according to the likely source of payment should they need care.

“So, there you have it. Voila! Problem solved.”
[I, of course, added the emphasis]

Mr. Goodman’s analysis drew a sharp response from the Center for Public Policy Priorities, an Austin-based think tank focusing on poverty issues. “That is not the same thing as having health insurance,” said Eva Deluna, a budget analyst for the center. People without insurance are less likely to seek care, and when they do, the cost to the health system is greater, she said.

Other republicans, including GDubya, Tommy Thompson, and Tom Delay have made this same argument.

As I know my six readers are aware, treatment in the emergency room is the most expensive manner of providing health care, and the tab is picked up by taxpayers who support public hospitals. Additionally, those who rely on the emergency room for medical services do not receive preventative care, thus when they finally do seek treatment in the emergency room their conditions are often more advanced and, thus, more expensive to treat.

Remember the story of the twelve year old Maryland boy who died from an abscessed tooth, after six weeks in the hospital and treatment, including brain surgery, which cost $250,000.

By the time Deamonte’s own aching tooth got any attention, the bacteria from the abscess had spread to his brain, doctors said. After two operations and more than six weeks of hospital care, the Prince George’s County boy died.

Deamonte’s death and the ultimate cost of his care, which could total more than $250,000, underscore an often-overlooked concern in the debate over universal health coverage: dental care.

Deamonte’s family had Medicaid coverage but was unable to find a dentist who accepts Medicaid covered patients.

So if the constitution of the Supreme Court, and the consequent implications to Roe v Wade, the further expansion of executive power, and the further erosion of civil liberties, is not a good enough reason for folks to not vote for John McCain, his health care plan certainly should be.

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It is to our national shame that we continue to permit health insurance system drive by the profit motive rather than the “general welfare”, one of the six purposes of our Constitution.

YORKTOWN — Three-year-old Hannah Devane is allergic to food. Not the kind that makes kids spit out their broccoli; the kind that can kill.

The Yorktown preschooler has a condition called eosinophilic esophagitis, a severe food allergy that causes a type of white blood cell to congregate in the esophagus, the tube that carries food from the mouth to the stomach, damaging the tissue when she eats.

A doctor-prescribed formula has allowed Hannah to grow to a robust 40 pounds, a normal weight for a child her age. Without it, Hannah could wind up with a feeding tube.

But the insurance program that covers her family through her father’s job as a New York City police lieutenant has stopped paying for the formula, which costs $1,200 a month. Food supplements and other over-the-counter items are not covered under the family’s insurance, the prescription plan administrator said.

The full report may be found here.

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“For American dentists, times have never been better.

“The same cannot be said for Americans’ teeth.

“With dentists’ fees rising far faster than inflation and more than 100 million people lacking dental insurance, the percentage of Americans with untreated cavities began rising this decade, reversing a half-century trend of improvement in dental health.”

So begins the New York Times report, yet another indication that profit is more important to USA policy makers than is their Constitutional duty to “promote the general welfare.”

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I made the statement in th post below, entitled “The Bill Maher Grill”, that “None of the candidates, so far as I know, are advocating a “single payer system” and its attendant lower costs. Why do not our Congressional representatives permit and enable us (the citizenry) to insure ourselves through a single payer risk pool?”

The statement is erroneous, as Lindsay informed me in a comment. Dennis Kucinich is advocating a single payer, not for profit system of health insurance.