GlaxoSmithKline CEO Calls For Universal Health Coverage
Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical InsuranceArticle Date: 19 Apr 2006 - 17:00 PDT
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GlaxoSmithKline CEO Jean-Pierre Garnier said in a speech on Monday that the U.S. government should create a national health care system that provides a certain level of health insurance to all residents, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. Garnier said such a system, which could be modeled after the recently passed Massachusetts law, would broaden access to treatment and reduce costs. "Now I am not (recommending) national insurance that pays for everything and anything," Garnier said in his speech. Instead, he said, a national health care system could cover the basic necessities of health care, including catastrophic coverage, and serve as a safety net for the unemployed and uninsured. "[E]ssentially everyone must have insurance; like car insurance, it becomes mandatory," Garnier said. A national system could be run by private companies and be financed partially by redirecting money spent to pay for the care of uninsured residents seeking emergency treatment from hospitals, he said. According to the Inquirer, many health care analysts maintain that providing health coverage to uninsured residents who frequent emergency rooms for health care would lower overall costs overtime by ensuring that they receive preventive care from private physicians. "We need [a safety net] if we want to eliminate the tragedy of lack of access and the inefficiencies created by a lack of insurance" Garnier said (Mondics, Philadelphia Inquirer, 4/18).
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A Fractured Solution
posted by Steve Williams on 9 Sep 2006 at 7:15 amIt is always interesting to read otherwise thoughtful people make such uninformed proposals on health care or health care funding. While you clearly recognize the need to "cover" everyone, you tend to ignore that current government programs, acting in concert with private employer-based coverage, all act to raise costs beyond all reasonable levels.
This is so because people like you continue to push "private" solutions to a problem that needs a national, comprehensive solution. How do you defend a system which pays physicians, hospitals and even drug companies differntly for the same care? Thus is a privately insured patient comes through the door, we pay a doctor $100, or $105 or $95, depending upon which PPO, HMO or insurance coverage the patient has. He is paid just $50 for a Medicaid patient and $75 for Medicare. He is paid nothing or very little for one that is unisured. The same goes for hospital care or even drug therapy, where it depends upon the insurance carrier to determine price.
Such a system can't survive and to continue to propose partial solutions actually just makes it worse. We've got to start thinking systemically about the problem of health care. And when one thinks systemically, there is only one logical, practical way forward--a single payer system.
Believe me I understand how revolutionary this would be, but it is the only solution that can reduce costs, improve access and improve quality.
Yes, it will create other problems, and we will have to address them over time. But a national solution creates the "right" kinds of problems to address in health care. Today we deal with the idiocy of a fractured system that makes no sense to any right-thinking individual.
Stop acting out of your own self-interest and start acting in a responsible manner. It's long past time.
Just in case you read this, thank you for considering my point-of-view. By the way, I've worked in health administration and managed care most of my professional career and I have read extensively on health care.
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