Universal Health Insurance:
A Prescription for Solving the Drug Mess

As a former district coordinator for AARP, I met many struggling seniors trying to subsist on Social Security payments of only $1,000 or so a month while getting socked with prescription drug bills of $300 or $400. The story's become all-too-common, as prices for prescription drugs spiral ever upward and leave seniors on fixed incomes choosing between paying for the drugs or paying their bills for rent or food.

As everyone knows by now, President Bush and the Congress weighed the issue and came up with…the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act. AARP lent its support to this flawed bill, leading me and thousands of other members to resign in protest.

The only tangible piece of the Act to emerge so far is the so-called "Medicare discount cards." Even the most favorable estimates provided by the White House figure that using the card will save seniors 15 to 25 percent off full-priced medicines. That's not much relief. In fact, Consumers Union estimates that, with average drug prices rising 15 percent annually, most seniors would pay more in 2007 even with the benefit of the new Medicare drug coverage than they do now without it.

And consider the long-term damage the Act will unleash. Nearly 3 million retirees are expected to eventually lose their employer-paid drug coverage. Private health insurers that offer an alternative to Medicare will not only be able to pick and choose their clients, they'll get 30 percent more per client than the government spends on the average Medicare recipient. Worse yet, the bill bans the federal government from setting price caps or negotiating with drug suppliers for discounts.

We need more than band-aid solutions to the prescription drug dilemma. Our health care system is broken beyond repair and in need of a total reorganization. What we need is a national insurance health plan that will provide comprehensive health benefits to every American.

Impossible, you say? Look at what's cooking here in California. The "Healthcare for All Californians Act" (S.B. 921), authored by state Senator Sheila Kuehl, would provide comprehensive health benefits to every Californian at no new cost to California's general fund. It has been passed by the State Assembly Health Committee and the state Senate and is now in the Assembly to be considered in 2005.

S.B. 921 would create a single, streamlined reimbursement system for medical care in California that analysts say will save the state about $14 billion in administrative healthcare costs alone. These and other savings will make it possible to insure every resident of California with a comprehensive health plan that would include medical, dental, vision, mental health and prescription drug coverage.

S.B. 921 would fold in the Medicare, Medicaid, and other government money along with a payroll tax on both the employee and the employer into one public fund. By consolidating these funds, we rid ourselves from the current wasteful bureaucracies caused by the 6,000 insurance plans and 69 government programs in California. We would pay taxes in lieu of premiums, but they would be less than current insurance company premiums.

The biggest opposition of a single payer plan will be the insurance industry, which is expected to mount a billion-dollar campaign to defeat universal health care. That's why we're going to agitate with the press and lawmakers to make sure S.B. 921 becomes law. We want to pave the way, so that other states will see the benefit of joining a system that works for everyone.

—Elizabeth Basile is a retired English teacher living in Santa Rosa, California.