National Health Insurance is Affordable
Yesterday on Meet the Press, Democratic candidate for President John Edwards suggested his plan for national health insurance would cost $90 to $120 billion a year to fund and would require raising taxes (this is on top of existing government programs, I am assuming). Now before everyone freaks out, let’s look at the big picture. Increased taxes for national health insurance would be offset not only by cost savings accrued when Americans stop using the emergency room for non-emergency care, but also from reductions in insurance premiums now paid by families and employers.
According to the Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured testimony presented to Congress on January 31, 2007, the average annual premium cost to an American family and its employer (combined) is $11,480. That’s more than the annual wage of a minimum wage worker and seven percent of a $40,000 annual income. With the population of the US topping 300 million and the average family being just over 3 people, that makes nearly 100 million families in the US. That brings the cost of insurance premiums to families and employers to about $1,148,000,000,000. Count the zeros. That is more than $1 trillion.
I understand that these numbers are not the complete picture, and getting our hands around the out of pocket costs to individuals, families, and businesses is difficult. But this debate isn’t just about increasing taxes to pay for national health insurance. It is about using taxes to pay for health insurance instead of us having to pay for it out of pocket. Even if this estimate is off by some, it is clear that paying for private health insurance premiums, out of our pockets and out of the pockets of businesses, is far more than the cost of a national health insurance plan.
For those of you who might cry out that the private sector is better suited to provide health insurance than the government, take a look at the failures of private insurance. The number of uninsured is skyrocketing, $2,000 of the cost of each car we manufacture in this country goes to pay for employer-provided health insurance, and there is little or no emphasis on preventative care. The US is falling in the global rankings for quality of care provided and when you look at the distribution of the quality care we get, it is more likely delivered to the wealthiest among us and not to the majority.
The bottom line is what is important and critics on national health programs always seem to obfuscate it by focusing on taxes out of context. American’s deserve better. We deserve a rational debate over an issue that affects each and every one of us.
For more information and opportunities to take action:
Kaiser Family Foundation
Families USA
Consumers Union
Parents Action for Children