| Number 240 | January 23, 2004 |
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This Week:
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Greetings, This week, and probably next, I continue my focus on health care. There are many other issues to talk about, no doubt, but long-time readers know that I occasionally step back and take a little more “in-depth” look at one issue or another. This month it’s health care. I’ll try to follow this series with some sort of overview of a variety of issues. Sometimes we eat a full meal, sometimes we nibble. Maybe the next nibbles will take the form of another Stroll Through the News With Nygaard. We’ll see. I’d like to thank all of the people who pledged their financial support for Nygaard Notes last year, which I’m just in the process of adding up. 2003 was the best year yet for donations to the Notes, and your faith has allowed me to keep on publishing through what turned out to be quite a difficult year. Thanks especially to those of you who chose to renew your pledges—you are the foundation upon which the new pledges rest. For those of you who prefer to donate in a non-financial way, the current need here at Nygaard Notes is for a 17-inch computer monitor (for PC). My current one seems to be failing, so if anyone has an extra sitting around, please get in touch! That’s all for now. See you next week, Nygaard |
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From the New York Times, January 15th, page 17:
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In a nutshell, the good news is that there are increasing numbers of United Statesians who understand that our “health care” system is broken beyond repair and are organizing to do something about it. This article will report on some of the goings-on at the national and state levels, with some hints as to how you can get involved in transforming our current system of profiting from illness and disease into one that actually focuses on health care. Constitutional Amendments A bill proposing that the U.S. Constitution be amended to make health care a right at the federal level has been introduced in the U.S. Congress, and the bill is H. J. RES. 30. It’s worth contacting your elected officials to tell them you’d like to see such an amendment placed before the states. (In a separate article this week I talk about this idea, pointing at a serious flaw and explaining exactly why it is such a serious flaw.) Constitutional amendment drives are underway at the state level in at least a couple of states, namely Florida and Massachusetts. In Massachusetts, the Constitutional Amendment for Health Care Campaign was launched in September 2003 and on Nov. 24, 2003 completed the final phase of the signature drive. According to The Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care in that state, “If enacted by the voters in November 2006 this amendment will ensure that all state residents have a legal right to comprehensive, affordable health insurance that covers preventive, acute and chronic medical care, mental health care, and prescription drugs.” Floridians For Health Security announced that they have placed on the 2004 ballot an initiative to amend their state’s constitution to guarantee that “All persons shall have a Right to Comprehensive Health Care Services from the Health Care Provider of their Choice in a Single Payer Health Care System.” Organizing and Legislating, State Level In addition to the two constitutional amendment drives, there are various other legislative initiatives underway in many states aimed at improving the health care system. Bills like the “Health Care Justice Act HB2268/SB1430" in Illinois, and “S.B. No. 921, Health Care for All Californians,” are the result of people all over the United States who have gone beyond complaining and have begun to organize. In fact, there are active health care reform groups in no fewer than 19 states as of this writing, all working to put the “health” back into health care in their states. From the populous (California) to the sparse (Utah), from the North (Minnesota, Vermont) to the South (Florida, North Carolina, Texas), from the East (New York) to the West (Oregon), the movement is on. The groups have names like the Connecticut Coalition for Universal Health Care, the Maine People’s Alliance, Missourians for Single-Payer Health Care, Single Payer Rhode Island, and the Coalition for Wisconsin Health. Their tactics differ, the conditions in each state differ, but all of these groups are seeking to make health care a right equally available to all. Legislating, Federal Level Making change at the federal level is more difficult, but some of our national leaders are awake and apparently can smell the coffee, since we have no fewer than five (there may be more by the time you read this) bills before the U.S. Congress that aim to overhaul the “health care” system at the national level.
There may be more; I can’t keep up. Bear in mind that the simple introduction of a bill means almost nothing. Probably 10 zillion bills get introduced in Washington every year. The bills that go somewhere are the bills that have large, vocal, hard-working organizations of people actively supporting them. I think those organizations are taking shape in the case of health care, as the (partial) list of state groups above indicates. National Organizing Efforts Finally, there are some amazing groups working at the national level. They do research, they lobby, they raise funds, they publish books and reports, they do all kinds of stuff. Often they help to coordinate and support grassroots groups at the state level, some of which are full-fledged affiliates of a national organization. I have mentioned some of these groups in previous issues of the Notes, but I will list them again here (there are some new ones, as well): * Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) is based in Chicago, and they’ve been around since 1987. They’re a powerhouse; I’ve used their data on many occasions. PNHP “organizes rallies, town hall meetings, and debates; coordinates speakers and forum discussions; contributes Op-Eds and articles to the nation's top newspapers, medical journals and magazines; and appears regularly on national television and news programs advocating for a Single-Payer system.” They believe that health care is a human right. They are on the web at http://www.pnhp.org/. Call (312) 782-6006 * Another giant, in terms of impact and longevity, is the Universal Health Care Action Network. UHCAN started in 1992 and keeps on “working for comprehensive, affordable and publicly accountable health care for all in the U.S.” Their website has great information, including lots of links to other news and sites and groups doing like-minded work. Find them at http://www.uhcan.org/. Call (800) 634-4442, * UHCAN has started an organization called “Faith Communities Working for Health Care Justice,” which aims to help various religious organizations to get organized and lend their considerable influence to the struggle. Their website is: http://www.uhcan.org/faith/. Call 216-241-8422 x 15 * A group I know very little about is called American Healthcare Reform. The only reason I mention it is because the website has some great links to resources and groups. They say they are affiliated with PNHP. Find them at www.AmericanHealthcareReform.org. * The American Medical Student Association has a Universal Healthcare Initiative. I think this is important, since the voices of doctors will be crucial in the upcoming struggle for health care change. Look at what they have to say at http://www.amsa.org/hp/uhcinitiative.cfm. Call (703) 620-6600. |
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“Access to comprehensive health care is a human right. It is the responsibility of society, through its government, to ensure this right.” That’s Principle #1 from the Proposal of the Physicians'
Working Group for Single-Payer National Health Insurance, published
in The Journal of the American Medical Association, August 13, 2003,
and endorsed by nearly 8,000 physicians and medical students. In last week’s “Quote” of the Week, I said that “Switzerland has no uninsured people.” As reader Patrick made clear to me, this is not completely true. Patrick lives in Germany, and points out that immigrants (like him and his partner Mauricio) have a tough time getting health care in Germany, and he suggested that this is likely the case in Switzerland, as well. I looked it up, and he’s absolutely right. Here is a summary of that very issue from a recent report by the World Health Organization:
Citizens and “Others” On March 4th 2003 a bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress by Illinois Rep. Jesse Jackson that proposes amending the U.S. Constitution to make high-quality health care a constitutional right. This has 17 co-sponsors so far, including Democratic presidential hopeful Dennis Kucinich. In addition, Democratic presidential hopeful Al Sharpton has made the promotion of this amendment a central part of his campaign. The 2-section text of the proposed amendment is simple: “SECTION 1. All citizens of the United States shall enjoy the right to health care of equal high quality. SECTION 2. The Congress shall have power to implement this article by appropriate legislation.” As well-intentioned as this amendment is, the limiting of the right to health care to “citizens” leaves out the numerous “undocumented” workers and the fully-documented non-citizens who reside in the United States. This may be as many as 25 million people, according to figures released by the Urban Institute this month. While this problem can be easily corrected by replacing the word “citizens” with the word “residents,” there is another issue here that goes deeper. Malcolm X said, “[Racism] is not an American problem, but a human problem, not a problem of civil rights, but a problem of human rights.” And so it is with health care. There’s no doubt that a constitutional amendment guaranteeing the right to health care, properly and inclusively worded, would be a powerful thing, and the discussion that would accompany such an amendment process would be good for this country. But we must always remember that a government-given right—that is, a civil or a constitutional right—can also be withdrawn, by the same power that granted it in the first place. If a right is a “human right,” on the other hand, then it is the moral and legal obligation of our political leadership to do whatever is necessary to protect and fulfill such a right for its people, as the physicians clearly state in the quotation that leads off this article. No society has the moral authority to either give or take away a human right; it is inalienable and the birthright of every human being. If a government takes away something that is understood to be a human right—even if the majority of “citizens” supports this taking—that government is violating a higher law than “majority rule.” Many lynchings, after all, have had the support of the “majority” in the community. What of a society, like ours, that leaves the provision of health care to The Market? What of a society, like ours, that makes access to health care conditional on employment? Or citizenship? Or income? Or geographical location? Does this not tell the world that we in the United States consider access to health care to be a privilege, and not a universal human right? I think it does. Next week I’ll talk about some nuts and bolts of the ongoing struggle to transform our health care system, including a look at costs, and say a little bit about why this struggle is such a great organizing opportunity for us, right now, in the United States of America. |