MichaelMoore.com

Single-payer health care: Baucus keeps getting an earful

By Vince Devlin / Missoulian

PABLO - Sen. Max Baucus' insistence that consideration of a national single-payer health plan at this point will squander a golden opportunity for health care reform in the United States continues to be met with stiff resistance from many of his constituents.

"The word 'insurance' does not equal health care," Janelle Kuechle of Polson said at a meeting here Thursday. "If I have to pay a $900 premium to have health insurance with a $10,000 deductible, that is not health care."

But Baucus - whose staff has fanned out across Montana this week for two dozen "listening sessions" on the subject - was also hit from another angle when he sent a representative to the Flathead Indian Reservation.

"I hope any plan does not forget about the nation's first people," said Dr. LeAnna Muzquiz of St. Ignatius.

Then Kevin Howlett told Richard Litsey, counsel and senior adviser on Indian affairs for the Senate Finance Committee Baucus chairs, that the senator's plan largely does just that.

"I can find nothing in his white paper," said Howlett, director of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' Health and Human Services Department, "that provides for Native American health care on a par with the rest of the country."

Howlett, who served on an advisory committee that offered input from Montanans to Baucus on the subject, said he ended up feeling his presence there was "symbolic more than substantive."

"We're only given 40 percent of what it would take to bring health care for Native Americans up to the level we provide federal prisoners," Howlett said. "Our people cannot get basic diagnostic screenings. We have the highest mortality rate of any race. The Indian Health Service must be identified and addressed."

Howlett drew laughter when he referred to an earlier speaker who had wondered how Baucus' plan would deal with "the 5 percent of the population" who are in the United States illegally.

"When you talk about immigration (problems), that's a very interesting conversation for me," Howlett said.

But this conversation was about health care reform, and Howlett clearly felt Indians are being mostly ignored as Baucus and his colleagues tackle the issue.

"I felt it just didn't in any detail, talking about a national health care plan, address the huge disparity in Indian health," he said later.

Many of the others in the CSKT Council Chambers on Thursday were just as upset that a single-payer plan - basically, one involving taxpayer-funded national health coverage for all - had already been taken off the table by Baucus.

"Congress ought to be representing us instead of the insurance lobby," said retired school teacher John Oberlitner of Polson. "Max Baucus has stated it's not feasible to pass a single-payer health plan, but one year ago people were saying it was not feasible that Obama could be elected our president."

John Payne, chaplain at St. Joseph Medical Center in Polson, called health care "a moral right, not a privilege." He said if Baucus isn't willing to provide the leadership necessary to ensure, rather than insure, health care for all, Montanans should elect someone who is.

"Sen. Baucus has the highest amount of campaign contributions coming from insurance funds and pharmaceutical funds," Payne charged. "We know that. He can't kid us anymore."

But Litsey said Baucus is operating in the political reality of Washington, where the senator needs many congressmen with disparate views to buy in on health care reform.

"There are a lot of senators and representatives who say if a single-payer plan is on the agenda, it will not get their vote," Litsey said.

"The problem with health care in the United States is we spend a lot more money per person than any country in the world, yet we don't always get the best results," he went on.

Compromises that include mandatory enrollment in insurance programs for the 46 million Americans who have none, tax credits for small businesses to offer health insurance to employees who currently don't get any, and enticements to push the focus away from specialists and back toward primary care, can pass this Congress, Litsey suggested.

"I still don't understand why single-payer has been ruled out," said Duff Garrish of St. Ignatius. "All we have now is a health insurance industry based on profit. I have a personal message for Max: Saying it can't be done can turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Trudy Samuelson, a two-time breast cancer survivor from St. Ignatius, said having choices in health care remained important to her.

"I chose the Mayo Clinic, and if I hadn't been able to do that I might not be standing here today," she said.

But she's also the owner of a small (three employees) real estate firm who must purchase her own health insurance, and provides a health insurance plan for her employees as well "because it's the right thing to do," she said. "With the economy the way it is, we went from Nov. 6 to May 15 with no closings. I've used up all my savings paying my health insurance premiums. How can I continue to do this?"

Lance Hames, who said he spent more than 20 years living in Canada, said Baucus and other senators were remiss in not examining the Canadian national health care system he called "better, more efficient and cheaper."

"It's 60 years old and only two hours away," Hames said. "We need to de-myth the Republican talking points" such as suggestions that a universal health care coverage would be too expensive. "If our poor neighbors to the north have been able to afford it for 60 years, why can't this country? We're too busy making the rich richer."

That's the trouble with ignoring the single-payer option, according to Thompson Smith, a historian for the CSKT.

Thompson relayed a story about a Salish elder, Agnes Vanderburg, who passed away 20 years ago.

"As a small girl, Agnes was ill for a long time, and her parents were afraid she was going to die," Thompson told the crowd.

Her parents requested a traditional healer from one of the tribes to the west, who traveled to the Flathead Reservation and cured the young girl. When Agnes' father escorted the healer back to the train station for the trip home, he gave the man a blanket and a return ticket.

"The healer was angry," Smith said. " 'You're trying to pay me for what I've done?' It was taboo to accept money for healing someone."

Only when Agnes' father said he meant the offerings as gifts, and not a payment, did the healer relent.

"That story has always stuck with me," Smith said.

Any discussion now, he said, "needs to be focused on the basic problem with health care in this country, which is that it's profit-driven. Insurance companies make their money off of denial of coverage. That's how they make their profit, by denying people health care.

"Senator Baucus needs to receive the message loud and clear," he continued. "The vast majority of Montanans want single-payer on the table, not off."