With healthcare costs at an all-time high and one in five non-elderly Americans uninsured, universal healthcare is a top promise of all the serious Democratic presidential hopefuls.
While calling for a universal healthcare system, the leading Democratic candidates are actually advocating no more than a reorganization of the current privatized system. Barack Obamas widely-discussed scheme, for example, calls for the currently uninsured to buy into a federally-offered private plan akin to what members of Congress already get. This program, while often low-cost to the poorest families, would discourage employer-based healthcare, only mandating they pay marginally higher taxes if they dont insure their employees. The Clinton plan is quite similar.
Obama also focuses on cutting current healthcare costs in hopes that this savings will lower costs for working people. However, his fix of computerizing medical records and streamlining claims procedures will mainly increase the profits of insurance companies. With no control on their profit margins, it is unlikely that health insurance costs would decrease at all.
The plans heralded by Democratic hopefuls will not take away the authority of insurance companies to decide what healthcare you receive. Many insured people are unable to get the procedures they need because of cost-cutting restrictions put on coverage by the insurance companies.
Before the release of Sicko, Michael Moore said of the Democrats: “They don’t seem to want to grapple with the real issue. It’s very sad. Even the well-intentioned people like John Edwards his plan seems to be to take our tax dollars and put them into the pockets of the private insurance industry.” (SiCKO production notes).
Finally, there is no guarantee that Democrats can deliver even these paltry plans. History shows that campaign promises are nothing more than words. Bill and Hillary Clinton rode to office in 1992 on the promise of a new healthcare plan and, despite a Democratic-controlled Congress between 1992 and 1994, failed to deliver. The Democratic White House and Congress caved to the crushing pressure of insurance companies.
For every member of Congress, there are four lobbyists from the healthcare industry in Washington, D.C. The leading politicians from both parties are effectively indentured to the industry through campaign contributions.
In this context, no policy that challenges the profits of the insurance companies or the HMOs is likely to be proposed by any serious contender in the Democratic primaries. Working people will need to look to our own strength and independent political mobilizations to win the kind of free national healthcare system we need.