Op Ed: Managed Care -- But For Whom ? Oregonians Need Answers

(SALEM) - Oregonians lavish loving care on their children. Even our “childless-O’s” show practical concern for kids of relatives, friends, and their neighbors.

That’s an Oregon proclivity possible only while parents retain personal good health. Without health care there’s no further chance for economic ability beyond mere survival.

Many now know more than 613,000 Oregonians lack health care coverage; 113,000 Oregon children are UN-covered, often preventing educational activities; and more than 67,000 Oregon kids are eligible but NOT enrolled in publicly-funded health programs.

780,000 Oregonians “live” somehow without prescription drug coverage; and Oregon is fifth most-expensive nationally for a hospital-day.

This gets “dirtier, deeper and ever more desolate” even while Oregon’s economist sees more millions in taxes than ever before.

More so than ever-before for Oregon corporations; “blessed” with lowest tax-rate in our nation, already enjoying a historic burden-shift from “bottom-line” to other Oregonians.

Oregonians must NOW be deeply concerned for this state’s dismal public record on public health-coverage; especially for those cut off by consequences beyond control.

It is constantly at-issue among any entrepreneurs seeking solid state-guaranteed benefits luring high-piled millions for more business-industry production, dependent on “brain-workers” wise enough to know waht-to-demand wherever domiciled.

That “managed-care” label is much more than a canny cover concealing profit-motivation for private-interests first, foremost and forever. The “big question” is surely “Managed for whom ?”

“Managed care” is spin-useful euphemism for a completely UN-competitive system supported by an industry gone astray from lawfully-assigned corporate purpose; now designed to disguise catastrophic consequences while protecting and extending itself.

On this scarifying Oregon campaign issue we’ve now selected ONLY ELEVEN probing-points to summarize trends shaping ANY rational-reasonable approach to what Oregon must now do, rapidly. (Chosen from more than fifty found in press, professional, and academic sources.)

These are key-facts rounding out the realistic picture. You may have missed some since this national problem is not open to state-level solution.

ANY action-nationally depends on state leadership shaping national-dollars by state-demand; that’s why former Gov. Kitzhaber’s campaign is so essential as foundation for further developments-demanded.

Only via public outcry will “the people” be heard over that “silent-noise” in D.C. and elsewhere, created by “transactional lobbying” and lavish corporate “campaign contributions”.

Understandings of these points, researched in press, health-care sources, agencies and academia, provides reliable resource for democratic decision.

Myths about “managed care” prevail via corporate propaganda and media control; shaped by those who profit most from impactful mythology.

“MANAGED CARE” long ago became only a “corporatized industry” replete with widespread “conflict-of-interest situations”; covering serious and highly devious, “For Whom ?” questions, often only too well-concealed, surely NOT by chance.

Administrative costs run THIRTY percent for many enterprises in the industry while Medicair operates on THREE!

New-drug advertising-and-marketing routinely runs much more than basic-development expenditures; despite heavy injections of “national-interest” tax-dollars.

Most Oregonians are deeply dismayed to find we lag in infant mortality --BEHIND more than twenty other nations. THAT FACT usually brings declaration deeply-felt: “We MUST change this system, NOW !”

Oregonians agree, as many ongoing polls show: The percentages demanding strong action from both candidates AND legislators has remained consistent and growing for decades.

Here are our ELEVEN FACTS in the ONLY industrialized nation still NOT GUARANTEEING health care as citizenship-right:

1. U.S. ranks 23rd in infant mortality.
2. U.S. is 67th in immunization --essential preventive-medicine principle --right behind Botswana.
3. U.S. spends at last 40 percent more per capita than any other industrialized country with universal health care.
4. U.S. spends 50 to 100 percent MORE on administration via “managed care” than single-pay systems now operating. (Remember that “For Whom “” question ?)
5. Universal health care would save 100 to 200 BILLIONS per year, while covering ALL uninsured, and increasing care-benefits.
6. Massachusetts, Connecticut, other states see universal care with yearly savings of 1 to 2 BILLIONS, while covering ALL uninsured, and increasing benefits.
7. Citizens in universal-care systems have “more doctor-visits” and “more hospital days” than in the U.S.
8. Access to U.S. health care is directly related to income and race. Poor-and-minorities have worse-and-less health than the wealthy and whites in the U.S.; costing more since their major resort is hospital emergency-room care costing much more.

That’s despite ongoing studies showing savings-enough to pay for the shift to a universal system, with added benefits. But corporate campaign contributions and “transactional lobbying” are skillfully manipulated to prevent rational response.

9. “For-profit” corporate providers are the LEAST-efficient deliverers of health care, with 20 to 30 percent spent on administration -- AND profits. The public section is the most-efficient; Medicare spends 3 percent on administration.

10. Hospital procedures after conversion from not-for-profit to for-profit costs 20 to 35 percent MORE. 11. Quality of care has steadily deteriorated under “managed care”; access problems have increased -- now the lowest level of satisfaction in any industrialized country.

With this factual background, a following Health-care Op Ed will solidify impacts on Oregon for your further cogitation.