I support single-payer universal health care, but it appears Congress won’t have the backbone to provide more than half a loaf.

Truly progressive reform must meet the following two principals:

1. America needs universal health care—not health insurance companies.

2. American employers, both large and small, must be removed from the health care business, which will make them more competitive globally.

What follows are excerpts from my new book, “The Bush League of Nations,” which you can download for free at http://www.bushleagueofnations.com.

The United States is the only nation among the top 25 industrialized nations that does not provide health coverage for all its citizens. At the same time, America spends much more per capita on health care costs, almost 2.4 times the average of other industrialized nations ($5,267 per capita annually, versus $2,193.)

America’s health care system is wasteful precisely because it is private. It is a private con game run by and for huge corporate interests.

The privately milked health care system is structured to provide maximum returns for shareholders and wealthy industry executives who are not caregivers, while denying and delaying coverage, and passing around like “hot potatoes” those individuals most needing medical care.

As a result, America spends more than $1,000 annually per capita—almost $400 billion annually—on administration and paperwork, while Canada, for example, spends less than one-third this amount on a per capita basis.

America’s private health insurance companies spend billions each year on advertising and gaming the system. Patients and the actual caregivers—doctors, nurses and other staff—are forced to waste enormous time and money coping with the bureaucratic obstacles and paperwork of hundreds of different billing and reimbursement systems.

Health insurance companies enjoy record profits, and their CEOs and other senior executives pocket exorbitant compensation. William McGuire, the CEO of UnitedHealth Group, received compensation totaling $124.8 million in 2005. Critics noted that his compensation of $124.8 million in 2005 could cover the total cost of medical care for an entire year for more than 33,000 average Americans.

McGuire retired under pressure in October 2006 due to a pay and stock options scandal affecting UnitedHealth. An investigation determined that McGuire’s options to purchase 1.5 million shares had probably been “backdated” to increase their value. His stock option package has been reported to be worth $1.6 billion (imagine 1,600 piles of $1 million each.)

This is many thousands of times what is paid to the most highly compensated executive in the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which is run more efficiently than America’s private health care system.

The additional reported amount of $1.6 billion in stock options for McGuire could have paid the total cost of medical care for an entire year for 422,400 Americans.

It has been the kiss of death for any political leader to push progressive reform because the corporate and political forces on the right kill the messenger and sidetrack any serious policy debate on the merits.

This is why reform proposals proposed by congressional leaders keep insurance companies in the business of screwing America.

Jim Swanson, Los Altos, CA
http://www.bushleagueofnations.com [for FREE download of entire book]
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