Illinois attorney and lobbyist Dan Johnson-Weinberger’s site on progressive politics and policies
My often-updated blog on progressive politics
Better voter registration in Illinois – giving citizens 14 more days to register through SB 2133
Some progressive political initiatives that merit investment and attention.
Endorsements in the 2006 Illinois gubernatorial primary by elected officials
And these are my columns, now running in the Third Coast Press. The archives follow the most recent column
Health care: Opportunity in Illinois June 1, 2004
One of former Illinois Senator Paul Simon’s lines went something like this: “Our great problems in this country are nuts and bolts problems. They aren’t ideological. They’re just nuts and bolts.”
Health insurance (or put another way, insurance against medical bankruptcy) is a great nuts and bolts problem that we can and should significantly improve. Here are a four anecdotes to set up some of the problems.
Last week I was chatting with a cashier who had a bad ear ache. She would have liked to go the doctor, but that would cost her $80, and how can she afford that on six bucks an hour? And of course her job didn’t have any benefits (joining 1.8 million other people in Illinois without insurance).
In every doctor’s office, there are just as many people working on paperwork as there are working on patients. Sometimes more. Every insurance company has their own form, and the doctor needs to chase down payment from each of these different bureaucracies. Many doctors give a big discount if the patient pays in cash, because it is so difficult to get paid by insurance bureaucracies.
A friend of mine wants to leave his job to do something he loves, but can’t afford to lose his benefits. How many people do you know keep a job longer than they should for the health insurance? So he stays, sort of wasting his time, for the insurance that he won’t be bankrupted if he gets sick.
Finally, for-profit insurance companies and for-profit hospitals spend ridiculous amounts of money advertising. Every television commercial, every newspaper ad, every billboard is money that could go toward basic health insurance for everyone (and the advertising is taxpayer-subsidized, as it is a deductible business expense).
It’s a mess.
Compare this quickly to Canada. Every citizen has a health card issued by the government (like a drivers license). That gets you into any hospital or doctor in the nation, and there is no bill. Health care is financed like highways – the government funds it and everyone is free to use it. (Consider the wastefulness and inefficiencies of sitting in traffic and paying at tollbooths compared to the free flow on highways as an analogy of the inefficiencies of paying for each bit of health care service). Canadian hospitals and doctors have no advertising budget. Billing and administration is ridiculously cheaper. And with one big buyer – the government – drugs are famously less expensive for everyone.
So, how to follow Senator Simon’s advice and get working on this nuts-and-bolts issue? The first thing is to forget about the federal government.
If we want to follow in Canada’s footsteps (or come up with our own solution), we’re going to do it in a state or a county or a city.
It was the province of Saskatchewan that first implemented highway-style funding for health care, when the provincial government decided that it would simply pay all hospital bills for all Saskatchewan citizens in the late 1950s. It caught on, as almost everybody is better off, and about a decade later, the entire nation implemented the government-funded plan.
Our opportunity is in Illinois. We have all the wealth we need. We’ve got some of the best hospitals and doctors in the world. The nuts and bolts questions remain on how to get everyone insured and stop wasting so much money on for-profit bureaucracies.
We might have an answer in two years. The Health Care Justice Act (HB 2268 at press time) is a smart initiative of the Campaign for Better Health Care. Sponsored by Representative Willie Delgado and Senator Barack Obama, the Act (if passed) would set up a diverse commission of advocates and experts to come up with a plan to cover every Illinois citizen. It would also require the General Assembly to vote on the plan in 2006, to be implemented (if passed) by 2007.
The insurance companies (which are essentially parasitic middlemen) have been fiercely fighting this bill. They know that when people think about what insurance companies actually do (they don’t make anything, they don’t provide any service, and they make money by refusing to pay doctors for medical care), they see how unnecessary the insurance companies are. Look at the big Blue Cross / Blue Shield building in the Loop, or all those Ron Santo commercials – that money could go towards hiring doctors for people. But despite the insurance industry’s relentless and vehement opposition, the Health Care Justice Act looks like it’s going to get signed into law.
This is our chance to be the Saskatchewan of the United States – the far-sighted pragmatic state that figures out how to fix the nuts and bolts problems of health care, that other states and eventually the federal government can copy. Let’s get to work.
The thrill of lawmaking – a call to citizenship 5/1/04
What a great time to be a Chicago progressive! Get engaged in Illinois, Cook County and Chicago. 12/15/03
Illinois Democrats shouldn’t assist dishonorable 9/11 convention by Bush campaign 09/15/03
D.C. Democratic victory over Estrada – a veto of the judicial activism of the reactionaries 09/06/03
I was ejected from a People-Powered Howard Dean rally for selling a Dean T-shirt. 08/26/03
Democrats can’t be preachy (reviewing Danny Goldberg’s How The Left Lost Teen Spirit) 08/25/03
Political rallies and mass graves – the Republican 9/11 convention is exploitation 08/15/03
How would you spend $10,000 to help elect a Democratic President in November 2004? 08/02/03
The global solution to political
corruption in poor nations is right before our Chicago eyes
Branding progressive policies or How
To Sell Progressive Policy
First week of war: If you can’t
beat then, join them
Other archives
Email me at dan@djw.info
You can reach me at my law office telephone: 312.867.5377
Like what you read? Bring me to your campus to speak. And read my blog at www.djwinfo.blogspot.com