Former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential
candidate Michael Dukakis identified a lack of health care on
Tuesday as the biggest threat facing Americans, not Saddam Hussein.
There is ample evidence to support his claim.
Although Dukakis is past his political prime, he has nonetheless
touched upon an issue more politicians should address. Health care
is a fundamental necessity Americans should not have to struggle to
obtain. But currently, 85 percent of Americans without health
insurance are members of working families. Given the United
States’ status as the most prosperous nation in the world, it
is disgraceful for its citizens to lack complete access to health
care when their counterparts in less prosperous countries do
not.
The health care system in Cuba, for example, is viewed as a
model for the rest of the world. Cuba spends 25 percent of its
gross national product on supplying its populace with quality
health care. By contrast, the United States spends only 14 percent
of its gross national product on health care. Even though the
United States and Cuba have different size populations and GNPs,
the greater willingness of Cuba to devote a portion of its national
output to health care shows the United States’
proportionately low emphasis on health care ““ as compared to
its mammoth military budget, for example.
The United States and South Africa are the only industrialized
nations that fail to provide their citizens with universal access
to health care. And because the United States has left health care
largely up to market forces and profiteering pharmaceutical
corporations, consumers in need of quality care or prescription
drugs have suffered. Senior citizens who buy vast amounts of drugs
are handcuffed by exorbitant drug prices in the United States,
relative to prices elsewhere in the world.
Using international price comparisons, the United States
measures up poorly against other countries. Drugs that cost
consumers $1.00 in the United States would cost them $0.60 in
Germany, $0.49 in Italy, or $0.57 in Canada. The price
differentials explain why many senior citizens opt to cross the
border to Canada or Mexico or purchase their prescription drugs
online, rather than paying nearly twice as much in the United
States as they would elsewhere. Pharmaceutical companies are
exploiting American consumers because our government has failed to
adopt meaningful price controls like those in Canada.
Some critics argue that a government could never provide the
same quality health care as private industry. But the United States
government has an extensive history of taking private industries,
like the railroads or the post office, and running them with more
fidelity than private industry could. California residents learned
all too well the costs of allowing public services to be governed
by market influences with the energy crisis. Energy companies were
allowed to set prices based on the market, and only with government
intervention could a crippling shortage be averted.
Politicians must mobilize now to provide health care for those
who don’t have it and to reduce drug costs for those being
gouged by “bottom line” pharmaceutical corporations.
One of the federal government’s most fundamental duties
should be protecting its citizens’ health.