Source: Sentinel Colorado
The United States already has universal healthcare, just not for everyone.
We offer it to seniors through Medicare. We extend it to low-income families through Medicaid. We created public insurance marketplaces under the Affordable Care Act to mimic what the rest of the modern world calls a critical right. Yet somehow, when it comes to covering all Americans, we stop short and call it “too expensive.”
That’s a moral and fiscal failure. It’s time for the United States to adopt a truly universal healthcare system, whether we call it Medicare for All, single-payer, or universal care.
Research calls it common sense because the irrefutable evidence is no longer just persuasive, it’s overwhelming.
Gov. Jared Polis, last week, in releasing his draft Colorado budget for next year, went to great lengths to point out that the cost of the state’s Medicaid program is fiscally unsustainable.
An astounding one in five Colorado residents receives some sort of Medicaid benefits.
That’s good news for the hardworking families who can pay their rent or mortgages and see a doctor with medical issues before they become an issue for the emergency room. It’s good news for all of Colorado that, in theory, pays less for health insurance because hospitals provide less healthcare without being compensated.
But it’s bad news for Colorado taxpayers because the cost of Medicaid expansions and the increasing lack of federal support for the program — as well as the current effort by the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans to abandon tax credits for the health-insurance exchange program — mean we will all pay more for less health care, no matter where we get it from.
Polis is right. The Medicaid system must be reeled in to protect the state’s ability to fund schools, roads and public safety.
But without a true, sustainable “public option” or real universal healthcare, the looming debt will simply move from increased state taxes to wildly increased “medical care” taxes, imposed on all of us by insurance companies and healthcare providers.
It’s completely avoidable, but not under the current political leadership in Washington.
The U.S. spends twice as much on healthcare as other wealthy nations, — $10,966 per person annually, compared with $5,697 in comparable countries, according to repeated and verified research. Yet American life expectancy lags behind, and our infant mortality is higher. Our fragmented, for-profit health insurance industry drains billions of dollars every year in administrative waste and profit margins while leaving millions uninsured and tens of millions under-insured.
And for those who scoff at systems like the ones in Canada and Germany, saying that such universal healthcare systems mean patients must wait for care, call your doctor and ask how long the wait is for an annual physical exam or any care that isn’t linked to a medical emergency.
Meanwhile, the very programs misled Republicans and Democrats deride — Medicare, Medicaid, and the ACA — are proof that single-payer systems work. They’ve saved lives, controlled costs, and given millions access to care who would otherwise go without.
States like Colorado that expanded Medicaid have dramatically reduced preventable deaths and hospital bankruptcies. Yet these same states now face fiscal cliffs because they are shouldering what should be the federal government’s responsibility.
If Medicare is good enough for everyone’s parents, why isn’t it good enough for everyone’s children?
Universal healthcare is not a radical idea. It’s a moral and economic necessity, and it’s the successful norm across the developed world. Every other G7 nation guarantees it: Canada, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, and the UK. Only the United States refuses to join them. The result? Higher costs, poorer outcomes, and an economy weighed down by medical debt and job insecurity.
Our current system is not only inefficient but cruelly inequitable. Because healthcare in America is tethered to employment, losing your job often means losing your doctor.
Critics warn that universal healthcare will mean higher taxes. But those arguments miss the point, and the real numbers. Yes, single-payer systems rely on taxes, but Americans already pay for healthcare through premiums, deductibles, and surprise bills that function as an invisible, regressive tax on the sick and the poor. Under a progressive, universal system, those costs would be spread fairly. And as for wait times, Canadians and Europeans may wait longer for elective surgeries, but no one waits for emergency care, and no one goes bankrupt because they got sick.
The notion that universal coverage would stifle medical innovation is equally hollow. Most breakthrough research — including the COVID-19 vaccines — was funded not by private insurers but by the National Institutes of Health, a taxpayer-funded agency. American ingenuity won’t vanish if we stop letting insurance executives profit from denying care.
Colorado and other states that expanded Medicaid have done what Washington would not. They have proven that public coverage saves lives. But they can’t keep doing it alone without going bankrupt. It’s time for the federal government to finish the job.
