Doctor favors national health coverage
November 10, 2008

I have been an M.D. for 20 years. I spent 16 of those years in primary care. I am horrified by the shambles that our nation's health and health care system are in.


We are a nation with far too many self-created sick people. Employer-based health insurance is not sustainable. Health insurance companies resort to all sorts of twisted schemes to reduce their costs. They interfere with physicians' practices and offer consumers less and less while premiums keep going higher and higher. Pharmaceutical companies lobby fiercely in Congress to keep their profits up, blocking initiatives that could lower drug costs for millions. Forty-six million Americans have no health insurance and that number can only be expected to grow as our economy settles into this recession.

Therefore, I, a former Republican, have come to the following conclusion: Just as we have public education, so we should have public health care. Health care, like education, should be guaranteed to every citizen as a basic right. Just like education, basic health care is crucial to insure that our country is strong economically.

Prevention of avoidable illnesses has to become a national priority. One-third of all cancers and 85 percent of all type-two diabetes could be prevented through proper diet and exercise. If you eliminated tobacco use alone, $193 billion per year would be saved. How's that for reducing pork in the nation's budget?

We have allowed our youngsters to be the first generation that will be sicker than their parents because of obesity and all its related illnesses. Tobacco continues to be sold legally in this country and we all pay the price with escalating human suffering and diminished human productivity. The failure of our society to nurture and protect our most valuable natural resource -- our young people -- is a national disgrace and must stop.

To those who argue that their personal choice to eat unhealthy food, smoke, and shun exercise, seatbelts and motorcycle helmets is no one else's concern, I say think again! All people have the basic ethical responsibility to reduce not only their personal suffering but also the burden placed on society by their increased demand for health care.

To those who argue that their tax dollars should not be spent on others' healthcare, I say wake up! You are paying higher health insurance premiums to compensate for all the uninsured people that present themselves at our emergency departments. You are paying higher taxes to make up for all the people who don't work because of preventable diseases. You are subsidizing the patently unjust health insurance business where middle-class families can't afford coverage while CEOs are paid millions of dollars per year.

I have stressed the economic repercussions of our failed health care system because nothing seems to get Americans more energized than a threat to their wallet. I wish that people would be as jolted into action by the senseless suffering of millions caused by stupid life choices and outdated public policies.

The responsibility for fixing our health care system has to be assumed by all citizens individually and collectively. It begins at home by eating a healthy diet, exercising, avoiding tobacco, wearing seatbelts and helmets. It begins nationally by creating a public system that stresses prevention, demands cost efficiency, and delivers compassionate, high quality care to all.

DEBORAH BALLARD, M.D., Louisville 40205