Opinion – Santa Fe New Mexican
Sunday, January 11, 2009:

Carol Miller
1/11/09
Once again the Legislature is talking about increasing the number of people who have health insurance in New Mexico. The lobbyists will be out in force, money will flow and votes will be cast. There are several things to consider as this annual theater begins:
 
In 1992, after years of studying the health care system and considering various reforms, the Legislature passed a law calling for universal health care. The studies done in the 1990s, just like the study repeated last year, showed that the state could cover everyone and save money with a universal health care program that is publicly funded and administered (so-called "single payer" financing). Care would continue to be provided by both private fee-for-service and public providers, exactly as it is now.
 
In 1993, Bill Clinton became president and the Legislature decided to wait for national health reform and not act first. By October 1994, Congress gave up on national health reform and the Legislature let their mandate die. Instead of demonstrating courage, leadership on the national stage and doing the right thing for the people of New Mexico, the Legislature continued to choose the private for-profit insurance industry over the needs of the people of the state.
 
Using a formula developed by the Institute of Medicine at the National Academy of Sciences adjusted for our state, five New Mexicans a week die from lack of health insurance, 40 during each 60 day Legislative session and 3,584 since the Legislature chose incremental reform over universal health care.
 
Using this same formula, the national total is 252,000 Americans dead, from the lack of health insurance, since Congress gave up on universal health care in 1994.
 
The actual numbers would be even greater if they included people who died from bad insurance. Others call this underinsurance; you pay your premium and still can't get care because of unaffordable co-pays, deductibles, insurance denials and delays caused by the business of insurance.
 
It is impossible to get to universal access to health care through private for-profit health insurance. The United States has been trying to do this for more than 60 years and the dangerous experiment not only kills people, it wastes money. The purpose of private insurance is to collect more money than is spent and keep the money left over as profit. The U.S. spends more per person on health care than any country in the world, leaves nearly 50 million people uninsured, and our health status is not even in the Top 10.
 
The administrative burdens of private health insurance would take a whole page to list, but here are some as examples:
 
     .           The enrollment/agent/employer bureaucracy
     .           Billings for premiums
     .           The nightmares related to billing for services delivered
     .           Advertising and marketing
     .           Tracking deductibles and co-pays
     .           Receiving fair and timely payment,
     .           Provider credentialing
     .           Pre-existing condition exclusions
     .           Pre-approval and referral systems that waste time and drive providers crazy.
 
The administrative waste of private health insurance adds up to 1 of every 3 health care dollars or about $350 billion a year in the United States, or a $1 trillion every three years. New Mexico health spending is approaching $9 billion a year. Using the national estimate of 31 percent for administration, the cost in New Mexico is $2.6 Billion for administration every year. Public financing and administration could cut this overhead in half, freeing up more than enough money to cover every resident.
 
Most of the uninsured in New Mexico are hardworking, taxpaying workers and their families. Most New Mexicans with health insurance have their insurance paid for by taxpayers. New Mexico has one of the highest rates of people insured by the public; Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, SCI, Indian Health Service, VA, uniformed services, public employees, educators, government-funded programs, grants and contracts, with the largest being Los Alamos and Sandia national labs.
 
The majority of the health care in New Mexico is already paid for by taxpayers. This makes the hassles and extra costs of private health insurance even more tragic. You are using public money to fund private, mostly for-profit, corporations, that drain money from the health care system while needlessly killing five New Mexicans a week just because they can't afford medical care.
 
This is the unacknowledged corporate bailout of a non-essential industry, and it has been going on for decades. If Medicare, our national single-payer insurance program, can run the most-popular government program with a 5 percent administrative cost; how can we justify paying the private insurers an extra 25 cents of every health care dollar?
 
The 2009 Legislature has enough money to cover everyone in New Mexico with a publicly financed and administered system. Money for health care is not the issue. Courage to take on a powerful special interest is the issue.
 
Carol Miller is a public-health activist and acequia commissioner in Ojo Sarco.

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/Opinion/My-View-We-have-money-for-health-care--but-need-courage