Question

From a sociological point of view, what might be the greatest challenge to reducing inequities in health care?

Answer 1

I think our biggest problem is one of priorities. The major priority of the health care system in the US is profit. No politician, of either party, can propose any change that might endanger the profits of the handful of huge, powerful corporations that own our health care system. EVERY change that's been proposed, at least since the 1960s, has had to help the corporations profits, no matter what else it did. This is why the plans of GHW Bush, Bill/Hillary Clinton, and Obama ALL featured huge taxpayer subsidies of corporate health care. (In fact, when Obama began his run for president he said he wanted a single payer system, the alternative favored by 60-70% of Americans in every poll for decades! Not long afterwards he was forced to change is position!)

And this is one place where the US system is different. In every other developed country, the top priority of the health care system is HEALTH CARE. If we changed our priorities, the solutions would just automatically become clear!

Corporations know they can make more profit by only insuring healthy people. In fact the only reason we have Medicare and Medicaid today is that the corporations knew they couldn't make any money on the elderly, the chronically ill, the poor, so they allowed the taxpayers to take them off their hands. They would like to just kick people off the system when they get an expensive disease. In fact, they see the actual provision of health care only as an unfortunate 'cost of doing business', to be minimized any way possible.

So the profit priority is the biggest problem and THEN we get to partisan politics. Could Obama have been so naive to think that the Republicans would support all their own ideas when a Democrat proposed them? 90% of opposition to Obamacare is opposition to Obama.

A lot of people would say that money is an issue, that it costs more to cover everyone than just those who are healthy, or just those that can pay for their own care. But in fact, we all pay for the care of those who can't pay. In a civilized country, nobody bleeds to death on the steps of the ER. If you go there, they HAVE to treat you, at least to some level. The cost is hidden but measureable! It's almost as if most Americans are happy to pay about double for their health care just -so- 45-50 million Americans can't get health care! A single payer plan could save us about half our health care costs--as it does in almost every other developed country. So when people say universal coverage is something we just can't afford, you know they're hiding their real motives for opposing it!

The REAL problem with our health care system is that we don't see heath care as something everyone needs, as a right of citizenship, like education, police and fire protection, etc. If a 'critical mass' of Americans saw it that way, instead of a big profit center and political football, solutions would just fall into place!