Universal Health Coverage Should Be Considered, Columnist Says

Although Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (D) likely will not get very far in his 2004 presidential campaign, his "well-conceived" ideas on universal health coverage should be considered, Dr. Murray Katz, professor at the University of Arizona and a staff nephrologist for the Southern Arizona Veterans Affairs Health Care System, writes in an Arizona Daily Star opinion piece. In the current health care system, Americans spend 24 cents of every "health care dollar" on overhead, as opposed to just five cents of every dollar under the "well-run federal health care systems" Medicaid and Medicare, Katz writes. Because health coverage is cost-prohibitive, access to primary care providers is "block[ed]" for 43 million uninsured Americans, who end up using the "most expensive treatment" -- emergency rooms. Taxpayers end up covering the cost of caring for the uninsured, Katz says. In his proposal for national health insurance, Dean has suggested that the federal government eliminate the middleman -- the insurers that "must turn a profit" and therefore increase overhead -- and directly pay for health care for its citizens. Although there are "[t]rade-offs" between such a system and the current one, including longer waits for physicians, decreased medical and nursing school applications and "unmotivated" staff members, "many such problems" already exist under the current system. Katz says that universal coverage "will not give us more than we can get with our current nonsystem ... [b]ut more people will get a chance, and it will be more just." He concludes, "When we decide to do something about health care, as we must, it will happen only because of a president who will lead us there" (Katz, Arizona Daily Star, 8/11).