[Sosfbay-discuss] Single-Payer's Trojan Horse: Switzerland

[Tian Harter]

Speaking as one of the 47 million un-insured, there is some chance
that in a Swiss style system I would be insured, and not be one of the
7 million left out. We would have to look deeper to really know. The 
back of the bus looks good to a pedestrian, to use the public transit
metaphor.

Speaking as one of a tiny minority, I lived in Geneva, Switzerland
for four years as a child. My brother was born there, and I know
from personal experience that Switzerland is a very organized place.
I would even go so far as to say that culturally speaking, we don't
want to live like the Swiss. It's just not the way we are. We like
things looser here.

Speaking as someone within groping distance of passing for a Latino,
more than once someone has told me "I was born in (fill in South 
American Country of your choice here)." I often respond by saying
"I was born in Chile." It gives me that "we are moving forward together"
feeling some would describe as "being on the same page." I started the
paragraph by saying "within groping distance" because I just don't get
it on Latino Culture in many ways. I'd feel like a trojan horse if I
called myself "Latino" in front of anyone that walked the walk. They
would be okay with it though, because Latino is a culture not a race.

On the radio just now I heard a clip of Obama saying he was going to
use "technology to cut through red tape." I am painfully aware that it
took a lot of technology (and energy) to get that sound bite to me.
Please consider that very little of what made it possible to share
this from my point of view was insured. What your insurance situation
is I'm not sure of, dear reader. If you're like my brother, I think you
spend too much on insurance. Don't get me started on technology and
"trojan horses".

Tian

Edward wrote:
> As many of you have heard, the Obama Administration's public option may 
> be in jeopardy due to Senator Conrad's (and 2 Democrats and 3 
> Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee) proposal of "health 
> cooperatives". If you have seen the Frontline documentary "Sick Around 
> the World," I would hope that you too were irked by the concluding 
> segment on Switzerland and their system, which resembles Conrad's 
> proposal. It is very appealing to those like Senator Conrad and is a 
> Trojan Horse for single-payer advocates.
> 
> Do NOT be deceived! Switzerland is still unable to achieve universal 
> health care coverage, although proponents will want to attract 
> single-payer advocates by claiming (truthfully) that Switzerland has one 
> of highest life expectancies in the world and that health cooperatives 
> can help achieve nearly 100% coverage when competing with existing 
> private insurers. The Swiss model is just about as effective in 
> providing comprehensive coverage as condoms are in preventing 
> pregnancies. Instead of leaving 20 million without health insurance, as 
> would be the case under Obama's current "public option" plan, only about 
> 7 million would be uninsured under Conrad's plan, assuming that the 
> United States cannot better the existing situation in Switzerland.
> 
> However, what they will not tell you is that Switzerland spends the most 
> on health care in the world aside from the United States and is one of 
> three industrialised countries (i.e. United States, Switzerland, and 
> Germany) to spend more than 10% of its GDP annually on health care. 
> While insurers are not allowed to make a profit from basic health 
> benefits, they find other ways to profit such as providing "actuarially 
> priced supplementary benefits". In other words, hospitals would be like 
> airplanes: first-class and coach with the former containing all the 
> bells and whistles while the latter only has the basics.
> 
> Above all, health cooperatives in the United States will do little to 
> solve the health care crisis, because private insurers will not be 
> affected by health cooperatives. We need to continue our push for 
> single-payer and increase our efforts to debunk myths arising from 
> health cooperatives.
> 
> -edward
> 
> 
-- 
Tian
http://tian.greens.org
I've seen email viri referred to as trojan horses. This one isn't that.