Public Employee Press

Book Review
Practical doc sees health care meltdown

Dr. Robert H. Lebow practiced at a small community health care clinic for over 20 years. There he witnessed a growing number of uninsured and underinsured patients delaying treatment until their diseases became more serious and ultimately more expensive to care for.

He saw his share of the 18,000 Americans who die each year because they have inadequate health insurance coverage or none at all.

Based on this practical, patient-centered experience, Lebow critiques our current medical care nightmare in his new book, “Health Care Meltdown: Confronting the Myths and Fixing Our Failing System.”

The current so-called system leaves more and more people uninsured each year — 46 million in 2004 — and it constantly demands more deductibles and co-pays from those who have health insurance. Most strikes these days are caused by management attempts to cut benefits or squeeze higher payments from employees.

Not a week goes by that we are not reminded by threats to the health insurance of one group of workers after another that the system is in meltdown.

The United States is behind
The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal health care system. Lebow says that a national, single-payer (government) program insuring everyone would not cost more than the United States spends on health insurance. It would save hundreds of billions of dollars annually by eliminating the high overhead and profits of the private, investor-owned insurance industry.

Such a system would lead to increased preventive care, lowering costs and improving people’s health. And it would improve American competitiveness abroad by removing the high cost of health insurance from the price of U.S. exports.

Single-payer, the system we use for Medicare for seniors and which the Canadians have for everyone, would be less expensive while providing better care overall than we have now.

Medicare for all is also the kind of solution envisaged by Rep. John Conyers, who introduced House bill HR 676. Lebow supports this comprehensive approach — which is gaining new support every week — and cautions against piecemeal reforms that direct our energies only to patching up the present unsustainable system by relying on private insurers. He was president of Physicians for a National Health Program, whose web site www.pnhp.org is one of the best sources for current information about Medicare for All.

The 2004 book is available for $18.50 or in the DC 37 Education Fund Library, Room 211. For more on this subject, see the article on page 19.

— Ken Nash