Film summary

3. Watch the scene with American Erik Turnbow on his trip to Abbey Road, England. What happened? What does putting back a separated shoulder and pain pills cost you if you walk into a U.S. hospital for this treatment and have no insurance (as Erik had no insurance in England)? Google it. What is this scene supposed to show the viewer about U.S. healthcare vs. England’s?

4. Read Bernie Sanders’ 2009 speech (below). How much did Americans spend on healthcare (average cost per person), as opposed to France and the UK? Where does the U.S. rank in overall healthcare performance vs. other countries? How much of each dollar spent by Americans for healthcare goes to insurance companies and not doctors or medicine? How does every other industrialized country besides the U.S. provide free healthcare for all its citizens?

Bernie Sanders’ Senate floor statement during debate (December 16, 2009)

The day will come, although I recognize it is not today, when the Congress will have the courage to stand up to the private insurance companies and the drug companies and the medical equipment suppliers and all of those who profit and make billions of dollars every single year off of human sickness. On that day, when it comes–and it will come–the U.S. Congress will finally proclaim that health care is a right of all people and not just a privilege.

There are those that think that Medicare-for-all is some kind of fringe idea–that there are just a few leftwing folks out there who think this is the way to go. But let me assure you that this is absolutely not the case. The single-payer concept has widespread support from diverse groups from diverse regions throughout the United States. In fact, in a 2007 AP/Yahoo poll, 65% of respondents said that the United States should adopt a universal health insurance program in which everyone is covered under a program like Medicare and financed by taxpayers.

Why is it that we need an entirely new approach for health care in this country? The answer is pretty obvious. Our current system, dominated by profit-making insurance companies, simply does not work. It does work for the insurance companies that make huge profits and provide their CEOs with extravagant compensation packages. It does work for the pharmaceutical industry which year after year leads almost every other industry in profit while charging the American people by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs.

Today, 46 million people in our country have no health insurance or health insurance they cannot afford to use (copays and deductibles in the thousands of dollars to see a doctor). Tens of millions of Americans do not have access to a doctor on a regular basis. 45,000 Americans die annually of preventable diseases.

In a town in northern Vermont not far from where I live, a physician told me that one-third of the patients she treats are unable to pay for the prescription drugs she prescribes. Think about the insanity of that. That is a crumbling health care system. Because of pharmaceutical industry greed, we are forced to pay by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. This is indefensible. Not only are we causing unnecessary human pain and suffering, but it is also an economic disaster. Talk to small businesses in Vermont or any place in the country, and they tell you they cannot afford to invest in their companies and create new jobs because all of their profits are going to soaring health care costs to pay for their existing employees’ plans. Of the nearly 1 million people who will file for bankruptcy this year, the vast majority are filing for bankruptcy because of medically related illnesses.

Today, the United States’ government spends almost twice as much per person on health care as any other country. Despite that, we have 46 million without coverage or without coverage they can use because it is too expensive for them to meet the deductibles or copays to see a doctor or have treatment. Why is our government spending so much and getting so little? According to an OECD report in 2007, the United States government spent $7,290 per person on health care. Canada spent $3,895, almost half of what we spent. France spent $3,601, less than half. The United Kingdom spent less than $3,000 and Italy spent $2,600. Why is it that that happens? The simple reason as to why we spend so much more than any other country without outcomes not as good as most others is that legislation maintains the private for-profit health insurance companies. That we cannot touch private health insurance companies is our core assumption. Yet according to the World Health Organization, the U.S. ranks 37th in terms of health system performance, compared to other systems such as those in Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. They did a poll in Canada. They said to the Canadian people: What do you think about your health care system? People in America say you have a terrible system. Do you want to junk your system and adopt the American system? By overwhelming numbers, the people of Canada said: Thank you, no thank you. We know the American system. We will stay with our system.

What is the problem with our system, which makes it radically different from systems in any other industrialized country? It is that we have allowed for-profit private corporations to develop and run our health care system, and the system that these companies have developed is the most costly, wasteful, complicated, and bureaucratic in the entire world. Everybody knows that. With 1,300 private insurance companies and thousands and thousands of different health benefit programs all designed to maximize profits, private health insurance companies spend an incredible 30% of every health care dollar on administration and billing, on exorbitant CEO compensation packages, on advertising, lobbying, and campaign contributions. This amounts to some $350 billion every single year that is not spent on health care. It is spent on bureaucrats and on insurance companies telling us why we can’t get the insurance we pay for. The money is spent on paying staff who are not delivering babies or treating people, but are submitting claims and sending out bills. That is the system we have decided to have.

From 2003 to 2007, the combined profits of the nation’s major health insurance companies increased by 170%. The top executives of the industry are receiving lavish compensation packages. In 2007, despite plans to cut 3 to 4% of its workforce, Johnson & Johnson found the cash to pay its CEO named Weldon $31.4 million for the year. Ron Williams of Aetna took home over $38 million for the year, and the leader of CIGNA, Edward Hanway, took home $120 million for five years of work.

Let me briefly explain the main features of Medicare-for-all single-payer system. Every American–not 94% but 100% of American citizens–would be entitled to care. You would have the same choice of doctors and hospitals that now exist. It is a national health insurance program which utilizes a nonprofit system to deliver patients to doctors and to bill patients. It is not government-run healthcare, it is government-run health insurance. There would be one health insurance program for members of Congress, the poorest people in our country, and for all. In that process we would save some $350 billion in bureaucratic waste. You would receive all necessary care, including primary care, emergency care, hospital services, mental health services, prescriptions, eye care, dental care, rehabilitation services, and nursing home care. The government would be able to negotiate prices on costly drugs with the pharmaceutical industry. Every other industrialized country on Earth primarily funds health care from broad-based taxes in the same way we fund the Defense Department, Social Security, and other agencies of our government.

All payments to private insurance companies would be eliminated. No more payments to UnitedHealth or WellPoint, Blue Cross, Kaiser, etc. We would add the billions in savings to a 2.2% tax income increase and a payroll tax (for employers) of 8.7%. This payroll tax would replace all other employer expenses for employee health care. These moves would pay for the entire system.