Health Care for Everyone?

In hopes to gain support for universal healthcare Dr. Bruce Trigg spoke to the American Medical Student Association Wednesday in the S.U.B.

Trigg, a member of  Physicians for a National Health Program, began his speech by explaining how the U.S. healthcare system runs today and how it is not an efficient way to get healthcare.

"The U.S. public spending per capita for health insurance is greater than the total spending in other nations, and essentially we have enough money to pay for a national healthcare program, but we don't have one," Trigg said.

He said that the U.S. health system is primarily a private healthcare system where people rarely get to choose their own physician. Trigg explains how the 20 percent of people covered by public health insurance are the sick and elderly, which makes it easier for private health insurance to make more money.

"Sick people are expensive, they do not want sick people. They need to avoid sick people to make money," Trigg said. 

According to PNHP about 46 million Americans are living without health insurance and of those people health insurance is just not affordable. While more then 18,000 of those uninsured die annually from lack of coverage and millions more are underinsured. Also according to PNHP the problem was formerly confined to low-income Americans but now middle-class citizens are feeling the affects of the healthcare problem. 

"I even had too switch my insurance causing me to loose my physician of 20 years so that my daughter could have health care throughout college," Trigg said.

Trigg said that having people employed does not necessarily lead to proper health insurance anymore because wage increases are decreasing and the cost for providing health insurance is rapidly increasing.  

"We need to keep working toward a universal healthcare system," Trigg said.

A universal healthcare system will offer healthcare to all citizens as well as undocumented immigrants. There will be no copays or deductibles, no need for medicaid and no private insurance. Although the possibility of private insurance for what is not covered by the public plan.

"Dr. Trigg was very informative. I never heard of programs like this," AMSA member Cloyce Nelson said. 

However the publicly funded universal healthcare plan is not necessarily free.  In such a system there will be pay roll or flat taxes, progressive income taxes, regressive premiums and earmark taxes for healthcare.

Wearing a shirt with the phrase, "open your eyes," AMSA president Phouong Nguyen said, "healthcare is a basic privilege right and by educating students about universal healthcare they can be aware of the pros and cons of such a system."

Hawa-The Budding Journalist

(October 10, 2008)