Opinion: Health plan enrollees subsidize care for millions of uninsured Americans

That figure is not dollars; it is people.

In this hyperpolitical season, there is one subject we cannot sweep under the rug any longer: health care for the 47 million uninsured Americans.

If you have not figured it out, these 47 million people are costing you and me. The easiest response is to blame the 47 million. It is a nice, round and impersonal number. After all, we reason, if “they just worked hard like the rest of us,” they could pay their monthly health care premium.

Look again.

For someone making minimum wage, working two jobs, is it possible to afford health care insurance if your before-taxes paycheck is $2,000? Do the math. I do not think so.

For instance, my wife and I are presently paying $1,400 per month (both of us are independent contractors with no history of serious health liabilities) for health insurance that requires the first $2,000 of regular office visit fees to be paid out-of-pocket.

Just the facts

In an online survey conducted last month by Harris Interactive, 85 percent of respondents said they were “concerned” or “very concerned” about health care costs, compared with 79 percent who said they had a similar level of concern about the war in Iraq.

This same survey revealed some other scary statistics: 29 percent of the respondents said they had not filled a prescription because of the cost and 28 percent said they had delayed a medical procedure because they just did not have the extra cash.

So, here are the hard facts. According to Dr. Paul Ginsburg’s research published in The New England Journal of Medicine, between 1999 and 2003, the per capita spending for services covered by private health insurance increased 39 percent. During the same time period, the hourly earnings of U.S. workers increased only 14 percent.

The conclusion is clear: Those of us who are paying monthly health care premiums are subsidizing the 47 million Americans who cannot afford medical attention. More specifically, the family physician has been replaced by the emergency room doctor who is subsidized by the hospital that has to continually raise the rates for care.

This repeated scenario is an untreatable organizational carcinogen that is slowly filling our national financial veins with spreadsheet toxicity.

Three steps to healing

Somewhere in the very near future, our society has to insist on three treatment plans in order for us to maintain the health of this democracy.

First, the government must endorse a plan that creates an impartial watchdog that will guarantee price-gauging does not pockmark any solution.

You are saying, “Right, just what we need, another governmental agency!” Well, do you think this present capitalistic system that is turning double-digit profits every quarter for drug and health insurance companies can be trusted to regulate themselves? Come on, if the promise of profound profits hangs at the end of this carrot, do we expect for-profit companies to deny themselves, and their shareholders, profit because they have an ethical commitment to keep the nation physically and financially healthy?

Second, someone in Washington has to bring together the best minds in academia, industry and government to “play with ideas” never entertained before.

I am confounded that Steve Jobs can entice the minds at Apple Computer to dream and then produce the iPod and iPhone. YouTube can pull in billions in profit by giving people a worldwide theatre for their home video. And why does Southwest Airlines continue to laugh all the way to the bank while we continue to scream at each other as we write larger monthly checks for the right to quality health care?

There are 47 million people in this society who need a new idea on how to hold on to health. We have new ideas for stuffed French toast, invisible fences for our dogs and permanent makeup. Why can we not find a big idea to keep us healthy?

Third, we have to develop a national consensus that when we are physically well, we are rich. We wear our wealth on our wrists, around our necks and the metal that surrounds us when we drive down the highway.

We all know that if we are sick, none of the trappings of success really matter. Life, when pulsating with pain, is reduced to its lowest common denominator: If you have your health, you have everything.

It is time we stop blaming someone – a company, our government – about why we are 47 million (people) in debt. It is time for some healing.

Cal LeMon of Executive Enrichment Inc. solves organizational problems with customized training and consulting. He can be reached at execenrichment@aol.com.