#FeelTheBern Thoughts: Avocados and Healthcare

by Kim D.

WE AS AMERICANS HAVE A RIGHT TO AFFORDABLE AVOCADOS AND GUAC SHOULD NEVER BE EXTRA

— Bernie Thoughts (@berniethoughts) December 18, 2015

Bernie is pounding away on the campaign trail and advocating for a single-payer health care system. He calls it Medicare for all and claims that access to health care is a universal right. On Monday night's Democrat town hall, he tackled questions on his health care proposals and taxes. In defense of his plan to significantly raise taxes to pay for his proposed social programs, Sanders said:

"If you are paying, now, $10,000 a year to a private health insurance company, and I say to you, hypothetically, ‘You’re going to pay $5,000 more in taxes — or actually less than that — but you’re not going to pay any more private health insurance,’” Sanders said. “Are you going to be complaining about the fact that I’ve saved you $5,000 in your total bills? So, it’s demagogic to say, ‘Oh, you’re paying more in taxes.’ Let’s all talk about — we are going to eliminate private health insurance premiums and payments not only for individuals, but for businesses.”

So, basically, if Americans pay a little more in taxes, they can have more affordable healthcare. Not better healthcare. As a declared Democratic Socialist, Bernie wants his version of a single-payer system to look like this:

In this system, every American would be automatically enrolled into Medicare. This is commonly referred to as “Medicare for All.” Like the systems in many other industrialized countries, private practitioners could still provide care, but everyone would be covered by a national health care plan. This allows for private delivery and public financing to insure guaranteed health care for all and effective cost control. This is how Medicare is delivered today for all Americans over age 65.

For anyone who thinks this is a viable idea, put on your deep thinking cap and consider this:

The problem is that Medicare already faces $43 trillion in unfunded liabilities and denies healthcare claims at a higher rate than any private insurer. "Medicare for all" would drive the country into bankruptcy. 

Sanders touts other countries as examples of where using a single-payer system to address healthcare needs has been successful, like Denmark, Sweden and Norway. But don't expect him to ever include Venezuela in that list. In 1999, Venezuela amended its constitution to declare healthcare as a right and issued in its version of Medicare for all called Barrio Adentro. Here's a little more history:

Beginning in June 2003 through a trade pact with Cuba, Venezuela began to bring Cuban doctors, medical technology, and medications into rural and urban communities free of charge in exchange for low-cost oil. The 1.5 million dollar per year program expanded to provide a broad network of small neighborhood clinics, larger regional clinics, and hospitals which aim to serve the entire Venezuelan population. (1) Chavez has referred to this new health care system as the "democratization of health care" stating that "health care has become a fundamental social right and the state will assume the principal role in the construction of a participatory system for national public health." (2) In Venezuela, not only is health care a right; it is recognized as essential for true participatory democracy.

Sounds legit but let's take a look at the present-day healthcare of Venezuela:

Around 70 percent of medicines in Venezuela, including ibuprofen, treatments for hypertension and birth control, are now in short supply, according to the Venezuelan Pharmaceutical Federation, a trade association of pharmaceutical workers. Codevida presented an assessment of the situation in March to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights, the regional human rights body, with a lengthy list of additional staggering figures: Around 15,000 people with kidney diseases who need dialysis don’t receive minimum standards of care for their conditions; more than 45,000 people with HIV face shortages of antiretroviral drugs; and nearly 60 percent of pregnant women in the country receive no prenatal care, even while teenage pregnancy rates soar due in part to scarcity of condoms and birth control.

For those who claim that Venezuela is not the same as Denmark, perhaps, it's not. For instance, the Denmark system is dealing with 5 million citizens while Venezuela is trying to service 30 million. Imagine government control of healthcare in order to service over 300 million Americans (legal and illegal).

I still come back to the fact that we have a friend who lives in Denmark and contracts with oil and gas companies in environmental cleanup/protection. When he needed to have LASIK surgery, he scheduled in advance and came to Houston to have the procedure done.  Why when he had universal healthcare in his own country? When he tore a ligament in his leg while on assignment in Kazahstan, why did he opt to wear a boot for several months until he could come to the US to have surgery?

Of course I asked him why and he shook his head and said, "No, you don't want to have surgery done in Denmark. If you have a cold, sure but major surgery, no. The waiting list would be too long and the medical specialists can't hold a candle to what you have here in the States."

***For more wacky and often hilarious Bernie thoughts from the mind of Spencer Madsen - click here and follow!***