Why
Medicare-for-All Is Good for Business
By
Bernie Sanders
August 22,
2017 "Information
Clearing House"
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Despite major
improvements made by the Affordable Care Act (ACA),
our health care system remains in crisis. Today,
we have the most expensive, inefficient, and
bureaucratic health care system in the world. We
spend
almost $10,000 per capita
each year on health care, while the Canadians
spend $4,644, the Germans $5,551, the French
$4,600, and the British $4,192. Meanwhile, our
life expectancy is lower than most other
industrialized countries and our infant
mortality rates are much higher.
Further, as of September 2016,
28 million Americans were uninsured
and millions more underinsured with premiums,
deductibles, and copayments that are too high.
We also pay, by far, the highest prices in the
world for prescription drugs.
The
ongoing failure of our health care system is
directly attributable to the fact that it is
largely designed not to provide quality care in
a cost-effective way, but to make maximum
profits for health insurance companies, the
pharmaceutical industry, and medical equipment
suppliers. That has got to change. We need to
guarantee health care for all. We need to do it
in a cost-effective way. We need a
Medicare-for-all health care system in the U.S.
Let’s be clear. Not only is our dysfunctional
health care system causing unnecessary suffering
and financial stress for millions of low- and
middle-income families, it is also having a very
negative impact on our economy and the business
community—especially small- and medium-sized
companies. Private businesses spent
$637 billion on
private health insurance in 2015 and are
projected to spend $1.059 trillion in 2025.
But it’s
not just the heavy financial cost of health care
that the business community is forced to bear.
It is time and energy. Instead of focusing on
their core business goals, small- and
medium-sized businesses are forced to spend an
inordinate amount of time, energy, and resources
trying to navigate an incredibly complex system
in order to get the most cost-effective coverage
possible for their employees. It is not uncommon
for employers to spend weeks every year
negotiating with private insurance companies,
filling out reams of paperwork, and switching
carriers to get the best deal they can.
And more
and more business people are getting tired of it
and are asking the simple questions that need to
be addressed.
Why
as a nation are we spending more than
17% of our GDP on health care,
while nations that we compete with provide
health care for all of their people at 9, 10, or
11% of their GDP? Is that sustainable? What
impact does that have on our overall economy?
Why
are employers who do the right thing and provide
strong health care benefits for their employees
at a competitive disadvantage with those who
don’t? Why are some of the largest and most
profitable corporations in America, like
Walmart,
receiving massive subsidies from the federal
government because their inadequate benefits
force many of their employees to go on Medicaid?
Why are most labor disputes in this country
centered on health care coverage? Is it good for
a company to have employees on the payroll not
because they enjoy the work, but because their
families need the health insurance the company
provides?
Richard Master is the owner and CEO of MCS
Industries Inc., the nation’s leading supplier
of wall and poster frames—a $200 million a year
company based in Easton, Pa. “My company now
pays $1.5 million a year to provide access to
health care for our workers and their
dependents,” Master told Common Dreams. “When
I investigated where all the money goes, I was
shocked.”
What he
found was that fully 33 cents of every health
care premium dollar “has nothing to do with the
delivery of health care.” Thirty-three percent
of his health care budget was being spent on
administrative costs.
“I came to
realize that insurers comprise a completely
unnecessary middleman that not only adds little
if any value to our health care system, it adds
enormous costs to it,” Master said.
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It doesn’t
have to be this way. Every other major country
on earth has a national health care program that
guarantees health care to all of their people at
a much lower cost. In our country, Medicare, a
government-run single-payer health care system
for seniors, is a popular, cost-effective health
insurance program. When the Senate gets back
into session in September, I will be introducing
legislation to expand Medicare to cover all
Americans.
This is
not a radical idea. I live in Burlington, Vt.,
50 miles south of the Canadian border. For
decades, every man, woman, and child in Canada
has been guaranteed health care through a
single-payer, publicly funded health care
program. Not only has this system improved the
lives of the Canadian people, it has saved
businesses many billions of dollars.
The
American Sustainable Business Council, a
business advocacy organization, started a
campaign in April in support of single-payer
health care. To date, more than 170 business
leaders have signed on to this initiative in
more than 30 states.
Here is
what these business leaders have written:
“All
supporters of the campaign believe that a
single-payer health care system, which is what
the vast majority of the industrialized world
embraces,
will deliver significant cost-savings,
in large part by eliminating the wasteful
practices of the insurance industry that are
designed for financial advantage.”
In my
view, health care for all is a moral issue. No
American should die or suffer because they lack
the funds to get adequate health care. But it is
more than that. A Medicare-for-all single-payer
system will be good for the economy and the
business community.
Bernie
Sanders is the junior U.S. senator from Vermont.
This article was first published by
Fortune
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See
also -
Has Your
Local Lawmaker Pledged to Support Medicare for
All? Have You?
Why Bernie Sanders’
Single-Payer Health Care Bill Would Be a
Disaster
