Tacomans can send health care message with Proposition 1
TODD IVERSON
Proposition 1 on the City of Tacoma ballot – not to be confused with the Roads & Transit measure – will allow Tacoma voters to weigh in on our greatest domestic crisis: health care. The numbers prove it is time to address America’s health care woes.
• Forty-seven million Americans today lack health insurance, including 29,000 in Tacoma and 113,000 in Pierce County.
• More than 18,000 Americans die each year as a result of lacking health insurance.
• Health care costs absorb more than 15 percent of the gross domestic product.
• America spends twice that of any other nation on health care, yet ranks 37th in the world in health care access, according to the World Health Organization.
• Medical bills are the No. 1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the U.S.
The problem is, numbers rarely motivate people. And another set of numbers has definitely piqued the interest of Congress: the overwhelming influence of the insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies.
The pharmaceutical industry contributed nearly $20 million in the 2006 election cycle, with 68 percent going to Republicans. The insurance lobby emptied its coffers to the tune of more than $30 million in the same time frame, with 65 percent going to the GOP (though the fourth-leading recipient, with $381,720, was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton).
The insurance industry spent $120 million over two years on lobbying, just slightly outdone by the $166 million spent by the pharmaceutical firms.
Health care is America’s most complicated domestic crisis. Medicare compensates providers at a fraction of what private insurance does. States can’t merely come up with their own plans, because so much is dependent upon federal funding. Insurance and drug companies are enjoying record profits and will fight any change with all means possible.
Our traditional payment of providing health insurance through employers is slipping. Fewer Americans are unionized, and companies now must compete on a global playing field where every industrialized nation provides its citizens with health care.
Simply put, the problem is so multifaceted that no silver bullet exists to cure our woes. It is past time that our elected leaders start pressing for a solution.
Tacoma has the opportunity to emphasize each American’s right to health care with Proposition 1. The resolution allows voters to endorse or reject a City Council resolution asking state and federal lawmakers to enact legislation providing access to high-quality health care for all.
Resounding approval would send a clear message to our Legislature and to our congressional delegation that the citizens of Tacoma recognize there is a health care crisis in America, and we need a solution now.
Too many people are dying or seeing their quality of life erode because of a lack of health care access or affordability. Passage of this resolution could give our elected leaders in Congress and the Legislature the backbone to make the necessary tough decisions and stand up to the insurance and pharmaceutical companies – industries geared toward profit, not people. Tacoma could join a growing list of cities from Boston to Bellingham calling for this fundamental right.
A fundamental change to our health care system would guarantee our neighbors, families and ourselves that we will no longer will have to decide between food and medicine or pace through sleepless nights worrying about how to pay medical bills from an unforeseen tragedy or illness.
Proposition 1 is Tacoma’s chance to express to our leaders that we deserve accessible, quality health care. Seize it by voting yes.
Todd Iverson of Gig Harbor is president of America in Solidarity, a group dedicated to the interests of working families.
