“Consumer-driven” health care no better than “consumer-driven” fire dept.

[maryf]

http://www.socialmedicine.org/2010/10/06/us-health-care/from-consumer-driven-health-care-to-consumer-driven-fire-department/

From “consumer-driven” health care to “consumer-driven” fire department.

October 6th, 2010 by Claudia Chaufan

While “consumer-driven fire department” sounds decidedly weird, for some reason some have been brainwashed to believe that “consumer-driven health care” makes sense. But it does not. It makes no more sense to let people’s house burn down because they cannot pay their fire-department fees — maybe they chose the wrong “plan”? or a plan with a deductible they cannot afford? – than to let them die because they cannot afford their health care.

Now, why the new federal law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act P-PACA), will fail to keep its two key promises (protecting patients and making health care affordable), is not the topic of this posting, because I and many others have commented on it extensively elsewhere.

Rather, it is to point out that if we continue turning health care more and and more into a “consumer good” that those who have the ear (and pockets) of Congress and the White House can make a profit off of (and P-PACA reinforces the trend ), we are up to extremely unpleasant experiences.

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As Dr. Bill Skeen, executive direction of Physicians for a National Health Program-California, wrote:

Sadly, those of us who believe healthcare is a right know that this country has never assumed the mantle of providing healthcare to all its residents. Currently we leave 50 million of our brothers and sisters uninsured; 45,000 of them die each year because of it. It is time for us to stand up and demand that our nation return to the real American values of empathy and compassion and caring about our neighbors’ wellbeing.

Last night we as a nation let a family’s house burn to the ground while those who could save it watched and did nothing. Everyday we let more than a hundred people die who have no health insurance. Are we willing to standby and do nothing to stop it?

(the new healthcare bill will only take care of less than half these people, by the way! maryf) also at pnhp.org