We CAN Afford This!

Read: CAN!

I decided I wasn't going to present figures for this argument.  Here's my challenge to you - if you disagree in any way, even the slightest little bit, I'm putting it on YOU to prove me wrong.  I invite you to provide documentable evidence to contradict me.

Eric Won'tor said we can't afford this health care proposal currently being discussed in the President's Health Care Summit.  That's the same as saying, I can't afford to buy my groceries at Safeway.  Well, not with the cash in my right pocket.  But if I dig into my left pocket, check book or debit card, the money's clearly there.  I don't really agree that the proposal on the table is the right one, but it's what we have to work on at the moment.

I use my state to start with.  My state spends five-big (read: $5 billion) annually through our state's department of Labor & Industries, in the payment of medical claims and fraud investigations for injuries claimed by employees to have occurred while working for their paychecks.  Time loss payments come from a different fund.

Every state has a similar department, with similar numbers, per capita.

This state generally declines most claims (not all states do, granted), forcing workers to hire a lawyer and defend their claims, costing the state even more.  Why does this happen?  Because if people get hurt playing around on Sunday and they don't have insurance, they commonly don't have any way to pay for their injuries, so they make it to work on Monday, and, oops! fall at work or some darned thing, just to get it covered.  The dance between employee and employer with these claims is extraordinary - it's not good.

There's always the argument that it costs more for the state to fight the fraudulent cases than it does to go ahead and cover them.  Tripping over a dollar to save a dime is just stupid.

If these people had some sort of automatic universal coverage, there would be no need whatsoever for the state to pay medical claims or to investigate the fraud.  This state, or any other.

Same things goes for Veteran's Administration.  The medical care component could be assumed under a national plan.  After all, if vets have automatic coverage under a national plan, what's the point of keeping the VA's medical component?

With each state contributing the dollars currently spent, the dollar savings, I would bet, would actually be substantial because you'd be eliminating duplication of services, and there would be no necessity for fraud on the individual claims level.

All the myriad of displaced workers working in 50+ state/federal departments could easily find work in the newly robust health care system.

Please read the book, The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.  It does a good job of outlining many international health care systems, public and private and variations of both.

Where am I wrong on this?  The gauntlet's on the ground.  I challenge you - let's hear it!