My view

Let’s not shoot CEOs; let’s fix our broken health care system

By DOUG ROGERS
Posted 1/1/25

Americans love having cars. But really, what good would our personal vehicles do us if we didn’t wholly embrace the concept of public roads? If the moment we pulled out of our driveways, we …

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My view

Let’s not shoot CEOs; let’s fix our broken health care system

Posted

Americans love having cars. But really, what good would our personal vehicles do us if we didn’t wholly embrace the concept of public roads? If the moment we pulled out of our driveways, we were on someone else’s private property, and forced to negotiate with and make payment to thousands of separate companies in order to get where we’re going, we would quickly see how impractical, expensive and unfair such a private system would be.

The idea of a public system, far from being a harbinger of communism, allows for an irreplaceable freedom to go wherever we want. It also comes with the understanding that such a system has to be paid for and we intrinsically accept that it will be paid for out of our tax dollars, and it will be maintained by a government agency that will be subject to democratic accountability.

I’m using this example of a public system, to show how having a service that is available to everyone on a radically equal basis, that is paid for by everyone, in as fair a formula as we care to devise, leads to a bountiful and undeniable freedom. In this case the freedom of the open road. But it is the kind of freedom that is currently being denied to us in the area of our health care because of the trap of the private health insurance industry.

Nearly every one of us who have found ourselves in need of medical care in this country recognizes this oppression in a personal way. Our system is impractical, expensive and unfair. The problem has gotten so bad that violent remediation no longer seems unreasonable to many.

It is also pretty universally understood why we suffer under this institutional tyranny. Our government and legislatures have become wholly transactional. Our politicians are effective only when they are protecting the interests of the wealthy corporations that have vetted them and put them in their positions of power.

This is the stalemate that has existed for years in health care policy. Every organized effort by citizens to fix the broken system is met with massive pushback from the health insurance industry to control the media, buy the politicians and bury the issue for another generation, hoping to instill hopelessness in the American public.

But corrupt systems do not last forever. And when the price is senseless violence, Americans should be fully capable of taking agency over an issue that affects all of us so deeply. Bipartisan understanding of our shared situation is key to addressing the status quo. And because it is our freedom at stake.

We attain health care freedom by making coverage universal. Many Americans who have needed medical care while outside the United States are shocked and delighted to find other countries offer services to anyone who needs it, without reference to billing or co-payments or any denial of service. Just as we allow anyone the use of the public roads within reasonable restrictions, we can offer medical care to anyone as a mark of national generosity toward strangers.

We attain health care freedom by accepting the shared responsibility of paying for it. The money-making model of our current private system is for companies to seek out the richest, healthiest risk pool, and distance themselves from poorer, sicker customers, and then deny service wherever possible, ensuring maximum profits to the few, while burdening those who can least afford it. This has led to the most expensive health care system in the world, for which we get dubious benefit. Public funding will not increase the amount we are spending on health care. We would pay into a different entity, tax instead of premiums, but the overall expense on average citizens would decrease as inefficiency and gouging are eliminated.

Let’s be clear about the benefits that a universal, publicly funded health care system would bring. We would be a healthier country. We would bring the cost of living down for average working Americans, making America more competitive with other nations. We would remove the financial stress from medical debt, co-pays and high premiums, and with that stress relief we will take a step away from the violent place America is becoming. It will be a significant step toward freedom.

Doug Rogers is a musician, composer and carpenter who lives in Long Eddy, NY.

ceos, health care, public, system, corruption, united health care,

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