We should remain wary of universal health care

Although the United States spends almost $2.2 trillion or $7,421 per person each year on health care, it remains at the top of Americans’ concerns. As the nation’s unemployment nears the 10 percent level, criticism of the current national employer-based health care system is reaching new heights.

President Barack Obama told congressional leaders last week that he wanted comprehensive health care reform legislation on his desk by the end of July. The White House’s plan includes reducing long-term growth of health care costs for businesses and government, protecting families from bankruptcy or debt because of health care costs, guaranteeing choice of doctors and health plans and investing in prevention and wellness.

There is no doubt from a liberal or a conservative viewpoint that the American health care system is in dire need of reform. Private health care plans are tied to employers for the most part. Those who are unable to find jobs where employers offer health care as part of employee benefits have two choices – use the public health care system or simply go without.

Government health care has evolved throughout the years from first caring for those too old to work full time to include those who are too disabled to work to those under the poverty level to now include children of the working poor. Kid Care was added to Medicaid, which was added to Medicare.

One breath at a time, America has been sucked into the very same universal health care system that we so strenuously resisted during the Clinton years. It is very similar to the failed government-run system from which the former communist Romania is now struggling to escape.

Staff at Romania’s St. Lucas Medical Center said when their Pitesti clinic opened in 2002, locals commonly offered bribes to hospital caretakers, something they learned to do to attain the best health care under the old communist health care system.

Before the communist fall in 1989, Romanian doctors made less money than those who worked in the factory, and reports are that 95 percent of the nation’s medical transactions involved money under the table for the doctors. It’s taken years for those coming to St. Lucas to understand their facility’s nongovernment care and private staffing offer excellent service for everyone who has needs, not just those who are able to pay under the table.

“When we told them we wouldn’t take bribes, they would ask, ‘why?’ They thought if we didn’t take their bribe we were not treating them well, that we just didn’t want to see them anymore or that they were so sick they were not going to live,” St. Lucas’ founder Dr. Augustin Batis said in a recent interview.

St. Lucas was the first nongovernmental medical clinic built since the communist dictatorship failed. Based on a theme of “honesty and integrity,” it has had a powerful impact on the Petisti community.

After seven years, St. Lucas’ reputation for excellence has become so well-known, that now the country’s powerful elite come to the facility for medical care rather than place themselves or their loved ones in the state’s inferior and corrupt system.

In the documentary, “Progress in Pitesti,” Romanian hospital staffers describe the deplorable conditions at the state-run facilities where they previously worked. One physical therapist said he never had access to up-to-date equipment while working at the state hospital. A nurse described how she and her colleagues commonly brought cleaning materials from home to sanitize the facilities.

The American-based Luke Society executive board, upon which Mokena businessman Marty Ozinga serves, provided funds for the establishment of St. Lucas Medical Center. Despite its Christian community backing, the medical facility is not considered a non-profit organization, but rather a private business beginning to sustain itself and profit enough to consider expanding to other areas in Romania.

“The business component is operating at a level that gains access to government officials, to political leaders to other industry leaders. We’re not just ministering to a Christian community or to the poor community,” Ozinga said. “We’re interacting with all aspects of Romanian life, Romanian government and are, in fact, playing a role and participating in the rebuilding, reshaping and restructuring of that country.”

Health care strikes at the core of human welfare. Traditionally, the family has been the center of health, education and welfare, but as the state steps in to meet those needs, the family becomes more dependent on the provider. In these unstable economic times, that can become immeasurably powerful.

Why would America head toward universal health care and abandon medical care self-determination?

A group of 14 Republican members of Congress recently formed a Doctors’ Caucus to steer us away from that disastrous direction. Each of the congressmen have worked as private physicians and are committed to pushing for a health care insurance system that follows the patient from job to job and allows patients to choose their health care providers. The caucus suggests tax credits, insurance vouchers, health care networking, and an ar ray of other reasonable reforms.

Whichever way our lawmakers determine in the next 60 days, it is our job to insist on true health care progress and with a cautious, wary eye on the universal health care system that failed in Romania.

First published at the Chicago Sun-Times News Group’s www.southtownstar.com

Fran Eaton is a south suburban resident, a conservative activist in state and national politics and an online journalist. She can be reached at featon@illinoisreview.com.

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