ABQJOURNAL OPINION/GUEST_COLUMNS: Public Options, Civic Values: NM Seniors Demand Both

Monday, October 26, 2009

Public Options, Civic Values: NM Seniors Demand Both

By Terry Schleder And Emil Shaw
NM Alliance for Retired Americans
          NM Seniors Demand Both
        Imagine a world like this: Your house is on fire and you don't know who to call to put it out. Or, you call the fire department and they put you on hold to verify your account status, see if you're paid up or in their region. Your call is dropped and your house burns down.
        Chances are I've just described your health insurance situation. And, if so, consider yourself lucky. Imagine having no fire department to call — that's how the wealthiest country in the world treats millions of Americans, hundreds of thousands of New Mexicans, every day in health care. Forget the propaganda of "death panels" in health reform — New Mexico knows better because that's what we have now.
        But it's not that way for seniors over age 65 and many disabled folks, thanks to traditional Medicare, the beloved efficient public health program backed by our government. It was created in 1965 to eliminate the problem of health care rationed by employment or insurance status, for those deemed most vulnerable. But even it's under attack in 2009 via private, parasitic Medicare "Advantage" programs and revisionist scapegoating.
        Today, we're all vulnerable to the gatekeepers of health care access by market forces, and even with a strong public option as an alternative we'll only begin to remedy the structural problems unique to the U.S. health care system. Nevertheless, a public option is the least we can do now; ridding Medicare of private insurance overpayments is the other. House Bill HR 3200 will do both.
        But for all of the strong emotions in the current legislative debate, U.S. health reform in 2009 is not really about health care. If it were, we would easily look to our peer nations — that publicly cover all for less than we spend to exclude many — for sustainable health care solutions.
        Our "uniquely American" system is a failure even for the insured because it treats access to health care like a product instead of a basic human right.
        Instead of scapegoating essential governmental services — a shout-out to our "socialized" fire and police protection, public schools and hospitals, water and sidewalks — we must fund them adequately to eliminate the preventable, discriminatory patterns of injustice we feel so sharply under our multi-payer health care system, especially in New Mexico, where it leaves 22 percent of us "uncovered."
        Imagine the innovations if we funded public health care instead of costly insurance middlemen: expanded Medicare for all would efficiently replace the quasi-privatized Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage overpayments would instead fund better services for all seniors, or stimulate a functional primary care system.
        The bulls-eye on our public programs is nothing less than historical revisionism, plus the big bucks to be made off of sick folks. As we increasingly rely on public health systems, the ironic and rabid fear-mongering of them serves only to protect profits, costs and inflated corporate bureaucrat salaries and to stop any real plan to build a health care system that prevents disease instead of profiting from it.
        Private Medicare programs are a timely example of how political scare tactics have worked well to funnel our public health money into private hands so only a relative few benefit and the public system weakens.
        Seniors in New Mexico aim to fix that this year. We're tired of the lies that malign our strong public programs like Medicare, Social Security and public education. Our current debate is about nothing less than our civic values — how we care for each other, who lives or dies and what price we are willing to pay for our indifference to suffering, inequality and greed.
        Seniors and retirees — and those of us who aspire to be both one day — in New Mexico are proudly bucking the national trend and not buying the right-wing lies about the need to further privatize health care access. We know that only a fool fails to publicly fund human needs in times of economic hardship. Snubbing this simple rule after the Great Depression, for example, would have been disastrous, and cost us our prime economic engine: people.
        That's who's on the chopping block now — in New Mexico as we decide whether to fund children or the wealthy, and in the United States as we debate the role of corporations in the very business of our lives and health.
        Do we want strong universal programs that only the government can assure or more of the same market failures for our basic human needs? Health care, or health insurance? Let's listen to our elders and answer with courage.
        Terry Schleder is the NM Alliance for Retired Americans field staff and a local public health researcher, and Emil Shaw is the president of the NM ARA, former president of NM AFT Retirees and a retired teacher.

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