With health care costs on the rise, the United States faces a
growing problem.
These costs have left the public and private sectors with
increased burdens in providing health care for Americans.
Increasing health care costs have led many corporations and
individuals to drop their insurance plans and have made it more
difficult for companies to cover their employees.
Many members of the UCLA community have voiced concerns about
the state of health care. They say they believe the current system
is ineffective and argue that solutions should be put into
place.
If nothing is done to stop current health care issues, the
country will eventually face a dilemma.
“We’re really seeing a national crisis. … The
current system is broken,” said Kent Wong, director of the
UCLA Labor Center.
An aging population, average increased life expectancy per
person, expensive pharmaceutical drugs and consumer directed
advertisements for drugs have all led to the increased cost of
health care, said Professor Gerald Kominski of the UCLA School of
Public Health.
A recent study by the Boston University School of Public Health
states that health care spending has led to a decrease in economic
growth by 24 percent.
Furthermore, health care spending totals three times more than
the defense budget and two times more than the education
budget.
Higher costs have made it more difficult for corporations to
provide insurance to their workers.
Employers have either reduced health care benefits or cut them
all together, making it more difficult for people to obtain
adequate coverage.
Approximately 43 million Americans nationally do not have health
insurance, said Wong.
As corporations have reduced health care coverage, the burden of
providing health care has moved to workers and the government.
“There’s a shifting of who is bearing
responsibility,” Kominski added.
To reduce costs and maintain profits, employers are trying to
shift responsibility to their employees to find health
insurance.
“The big challenge is that health care costs continue to
rise and increasingly employers are trying to shift costs to
employees,” Wong said.
As the private sector does not provide insurance for its
workers, the government must play a larger role in providing health
care.
When large corporations refuse to cover health care needs for
their employees, people have to visit public clinics and hospitals.
As these medical centers become more relied upon to provide health
care needs, they will face difficulties due to limited budgets.
In the past, there have been proposals to fix the state of
health care. Wong cites the narrow defeat of Proposition 72 last
fall, which would have required corporations to provide health care
to all of their employees. Passage of the proposal would have
provided insurance for one million Californians.
The intense debate over how to fix the current system has led to
different views.
“The long-term solution is national health care
reform,” said Wong.
In addition to the UCLA community proposing ways to fix the
current system, local government officials have also advocated
their own solutions.
Others are working toward reform at the state level, such as
California Assemblyman Keith Richman, R-Granada Hills.
Richman has proposed legislation which would provide
comprehensive, universal coverage in California.
“We think it’s simple for everyone in California to
have insurance,” he said.
Richman said a family of four today must pay premiums of $10,000
a year. Assuming health care costs continue to increase at their
current rates, the cost for premiums will double by 2010.
Despite rising costs, “there are a number of things to
help control costs. … There is a whole list of cost-control
mechanisms in my legislation,” he said.
The assemblyman’s package focuses on three main areas:
access, cost control and quality.
Richman also supports establishing regional purchasing tools
that will allow individuals and small businesses to have
“flexible benefit packages that help suit personal
needs.”
Advocates of free markets contend that competition will drive
down prices and companies must lower prices to effectively compete
for consumers. However, “competition does not appear to
control price,” Kominski said.
Kominski has advocated cost controls for drugs. He is a critic
of the Medicare Modernization Act, which prohibits the government
from setting prices of drugs. He says the legislation was “a
wasted opportunity for Congress to exercise its purchasing
power.”