America needs a health plan that works

Although neither of our local papers thought to make much mention of it, the Democratic Obama-Biden team did win the U.S. presidency last week.

Regardless of how one’s vote was cast here in Boundary County, issues vital to the well-being of all of us will be decided in the coming months and years. No issue is of greater importance than health care.

For me, a reminder came as, prone to the many mishaps that come with old age, I fell into the donut hole.

For those too young to have become acquainted with the donut hole, it is the provision of Part D of Medicare passed several years ago that decrees that when a certain level of payment is reached, the client is now obliged to pay the full cost of his drugs while at the same time continuing to pay his monthly fee to his Part D insurer.

In its zeal to avoid interfering with the rights of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries by regulating their operations, our outgoing administration and Congress refused to regulate the cost of drugs or the co-pays and deductibles that insurers charged. They argued that having a variety of plans to choose from would, through competition, insure that the plan would be advantageous to recipients of Plan D.

However, neither drug firms nor insurers saw fit to compete in lowering prices, so recipients were faced with plans that didn’t differ substantially from one another.

The result has been to place a huge burden on those elders whose medications are substantial. Not surprisingly, reform of Medicare Part D is a priority for me.

But Part D is not the only problem with health care. It does not reflect well on us as a nation that we are toward the bottom in the ranking of industrial nations with regard to health care. Millions are without health insurance, and many who have health plans find that their insurers will not cover the cost of treatment they need, forcing many to forego treatment or to bring themselves to the brink of financial disaster to pay for the treatment on their own.

Consider too, that those burdened with heavy medical bills are not in a position to buy goods that could help stimulate our economy, and that many foreclosures and bankruptcies are directly linked to a necessity to borrow money to pay for expensive medical care.

In 1935 President Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. This enabled the elderly to escape destitution at the height of the Great Depression, and set the stage for a major source of retirement income, which to this day is enjoyed by millions. At the time it was said that Roosevelt had hoped to offer health insurance as well, but that Congress balked.

Medicare did not become a reality until 1965, when President Johnson signed it into law. Today it is necessary to bring the health care system into the 21st century in line with the changing needs of our population. We should all look carefully at our health needs and those of the people in our own community.

These should be open for discussion, and made clear to the incoming administration and those who will be representing us in Congress. Together we should be able to come up with a health plan that works for all of us.