Thom Hartmann: Rwanda has Better Health Care than America

[thomhartmann]

Ben Franklin famously said, at the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, that "if we don't hang together, we shall surely hang separately." That lesson of "we're all in it together" wasn't lost on Rwanda. Rwanda - a small nation in central Africa - is one of the poorest and most underdeveloped nations in the world. Nearly 60 percent of Rwandans live below the national poverty line - and in Rwanda, with an average income of just $560 per year per family - less than $2 a day - being in poverty meant bringing home and living on as little as ten cents a day. From 1990 to 1994 - the nation had a civil war - and in April of 1994 - the Rwandan Genocide began - lasting for 3 months - and taking the lives of nearly 1 million Rwandans. And yet - despite going through a civil war and a genocide - and being one of the poorest countries in the world - the tiny nation of Rwanda has something the United States doesn't - a healthcare system that works for all.

Today - the new talking point coming from the Right against Obamacare is that it raises taxes. Yet, that's exactly how Rwanda went about creating a healthcare system that works for everybody. Today - only 4% of the Rwandan population is uninsured - compared to more than 16% in the United States. So how'd Rwanda do it? In 1999 - most Rwandans never had seen a doctor and even when they were really sick, couldn't get into a hospital - primarily because costs were so high that average citizens simply couldn't afford it. Knowing they had to take action - the government's Ministry of Health started a pilot project of providing health insurance in three of the country's districts. With success in these districts - the program began to spread across the country in 2004. It ran into some kinks, though. The main one was that the government set insurance premiums at $2 dollars per year - and that was too much for for most Rwandans to afford.

So - then - the program shifted to a progressive tax system. For wealthy Rwandans - insurance premiums increased to 8 dollars a year - while premiums for the poor decreased - to zero. This is similar to what's in Obamacare - with poor and low-income Americans getting free Medicaid or tax subsidies to purchase health insurance at no expense. Today - the results of Rwanda's universal health care system are remarkable. Now - there is a massive network of community health workers across the country - in both cities and villages. 80 percent of AIDS patients in Rwanda are getting the treatments they need - which is really critical in a nation with one of the highest AIDS infection rates in all of Africa. Just ten years ago - before the insurance program was put in place - life expectancy was a meager 48 years at birth. Now - its 58. And - in the last 5 years - deaths of children under 5 have dropped by half - and malaria - a once debilitating and highly deadly disease in Rwanda - is now diagnosed quicker, which means life-saving treatment is provided faster.

All of these improvements are thanks to a system that uses progressive taxes - a system that Obamacare embraces too. Currently - the Medicare tax on salary is 2.9 percent. Starting in 2013 - there will be a small increase - .9 percent - for Americans making over $200,000 dollars per year. And - also in 2013 - there will be a 3.8 percent increase on the federal income tax rate for long-term capital gains and dividends - again, only for those again with a gross income over $200,000 dollars. Finally - there will be a tax of about $600 a year on those freeloaders who have a higher-than-average income but don't want to buy health insurance. So what's the big picture here?

Rwanda knew that in order to create a healthcare system that works for all - the wealthiest Rwandans had to contribute their fair share. Rwanda understood that everyone has to be covered if the system's really going to work for the entire nation. And Obamacare begins to do the same thing for America. Obamacare makes the wealthiest Americans - the 1 percenters - contribute more to Medicare - so that the system has enough funding to help all Americans get the healthcare and treatment they need. If we ever want to see a country where healthcare reaches all Americans - like it does in Rwanda, of all places - then it's critical that we continue what Obamacare has started. We're all in this together, after all. Just ask Ben Franklin.


The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann on RT TV & FSTV "live" 9pm and 11pm check www.thomhartmann.com/tv for local listings

[PoliticAverse]

1. Rwanda doesn't have better health care than America. n/t

[anon-y-moose]

2. good argument ???

[fasttense]

3. Yeah, I'm going to take your word for it over Thom Hartmann's???

[LongTomH]

4. Thom makes great points in this video; but, the title is misleading.

Rwanda doesn't have a better health care system; but, they've been making improvements. 10 years increase in life expectancy in 10 years is a considerable improvement. The last increase in life expectancy in the US amounted to actually a few weeks, and in a number of US counties, the trend was actually negative for low-income women.