Free health care is perfect prescription for U.S.

So, I’ve finally cracked.

Stories on these pages recently have called universal health care immoral and un-American.

Even as a supporter of the policy, which, in its strongest form, would give free health insurance to all Americans, I thought initially that it would diminish me to respond.

In the spirit of a balanced opinion page, I’m here to tell you that having the government pay for your health insurance is beneficial.

Conservatives love to tell you how horrible health care in other countries is. Those frog-eating cheese-lovers in France, they intone, have it so awful with their socialized medicine. But let’s look at how we really stack up.

The French system covers everyone, regardless of employment, almost free of charge. Broken bone? Covered. Heart surgery? Covered. Through a nifty system financed by income taxes and employer and employee contributions, such as Social Security, you get all the care you want for just a few euros.

In the United States, if you don’t have health care from your employer, you’ve got to pay your own way, and those who can’t ““ 46 million and counting ““ are simply out of luck.

Land of the free all right. Free, that is, to wait until you’re so sick you must crawl into the emergency room for help because you couldn’t afford preventative care.

The French live longer too. In 2003, life expectancy in France was estimated to be 80 years. In the United States, it was only 78, and that’s even considering that they smoke and drink loads more than we do.

Well, sacre bleu, they’re doing way better than us. Having the government help out with health care, if even just a little, doesn’t look so bad now does it?

Now take a look at Canada. They’ve got a truly socialist system in which the government provides everyone’s health insurance and all private forms are outlawed.

Not that this would ever fly in the U.S. ““ we love our market too much ““ but it’s still a testament to government’s effectiveness when you see how well they’re doing.

Canada has got the same life expectancy as France, and what’s more, like France, they pay less for it than we do. Canada spent $3,165 per capita on health care in 2004, while we paid $6,102.

So we live shorter lives and we don’t cover nearly a sixth of our population, but we still pay more.

I’d like a refund please.

Don’t get me wrong, Canada does have its problems. People do, unfortunately, have to wait quite some time for elective surgeries.

At the same time, though, folks in Canada wait less than Americans for vital surgeries ““ the ones that matter ““ and they’re all guaranteed treatment.

Having the government help out with health insurance won’t just help us regain our national pride in comparison to the more advanced countries, it’ll help out our economy too.

It’s been generally accepted for some time in the United States that your employer pays for your insurance, but that’s now changing. Health insurance is a big chunk of labor costs for many companies, and as they look to trim down budgets, health insurance for workers can be one of the first things to go.

Grocery stores in Southern California, where unions have been in tense disputes with management recently over health benefits, provide a good example.

Before 2003, 94 percent of grocery workers had insurance paid for by their employers. That number dropped to 54 percent last September after a contract renegotiation, according to the Center for Labor Research and Education at UC Berkeley.

If the government picked up the entire tab, businesses could save even on labor costs, and labor could keep the health benefits they’ve relied on for years. There’d be less tension between labor and management over benefits.

There are just so many reasons to love government-sponsored health insurance, and I can’t even list them all here. It’s a great idea, and if implemented properly, most everybody wins. Except, of course, for some grumpy conservatives who don’t want to chip in.

E-mail Reed at treed@media.ucla.edu. Send general comments to viewpoint@media.ucla.edu.

Leave a comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *