Tampa Tribune

Time Has Come For Universal Health Care In America

Published: Oct 7, 2007

I remember participating on a Primary Care Committee that met in Tallahassee. At that time, Hillary Clinton was pushing her health care proposals through community forums around the country. I naively thought the United States would finally get universal health care.

The late Wendell Rollason served on the committee. Wendell had a colorful history but was best noted for his successful efforts to address the needs of Florida’s migrant children through the Redlands Christian Migrant Association. The group is active in the Dade City area and across the state. They don’t beat a loud drum; they just do good work for migrant kids.

I might have skipped later meetings except for the opportunity to rub shoulders with Wendell, a true Florida icon who received enormous respect wherever he appeared. Ultimately, I would receive handwritten notes from him on a broad range of human service issues. I maintained this correspondence until his death in 1997.

My favorite story about Wendell occurred when the University of South Florida opened its new Public Health school. I saw him sitting alone in the back of the room, and I immediately took the opportunity to sit next to him and exchange greetings. He loved a good joke, and our conversation was lighthearted as we waited for the ceremony to begin.

Part of the ceremony honored one of Florida’s great citizens, and the accolades went on and on. “Who is that crazy guy that did all that stuff?” I asked Wendell. He agreed that anyone who did so much had to be a little nutty.

Of course, Wendell was the subject of all those contributions.

Being the fairly new bureaucrat on the Primary Care Committee, I took my first opportunity to express my optimism that much of what we were discussing would be moot with the implementation of Hillary’s universal health care plan. Wendell didn’t say much and let me ramble on.

But when he did speak, he made it quite clear that he doubted such a plan would be successful. He suggested it would take another 10 years before this country would be ready to support a health plan for all. I defended my position, though somewhat deflated.

Sadly, Wendell and I never had a lunch that would celebrate universal health care access for all Americans circa the 1990s.Wendell would never say, “I told you so.” He walked along with his shock of white hair, stooped over a bit with his cane, appearing saddened by what Americans refused to do for each other.

A Major Gap

Looking back, Wendell was wrong; he had predicted it would take 10 years for universal health coverage. It has been almost 20 years since my first meeting with the Primary Care group, and we’re not even close to a plan that would scratch the surface of universal health care.

Quite the opposite, for it appears that the small gain accomplished by the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, which reaches out to only a small percentage of qualified children, may be cut again or possibly abandoned.

President George Bush, who last week vetoed legislation that would have expanded the program, bellows that expansion is a step toward federalized health care. That’s an interesting stretch. Even organized medical associations are having trouble with that rhetoric. SCHIP has been a highly successful program, and the major criticism has been that too many children are left out.

Florida lost millions of dollars in federal matches by increasing the barriers for applications to qualify children. The state went from a high of 360,000 covered to less than 200,000 of the almost 800,000 who could qualify under federal guidelines.

The need for SCHIP and so many other programs that target specific populations would go away with a sane universal health care policy.

Floridians Lack Insurance

Governor Charlie Crist recently announced that one in four Floridians under the age of 65 have no health insurance. A recent article suggests that the official number of uninsured in the nation tops 47 million. But if you consider any American uninsured during the course of the year, that number could top 90 million.

There are only 302 million Americans, and about 37 million of those are over the age of 65 and have Medicare. If there is any truth to the 90 million uninsured figure, that means almost 34 percent of Americans under the age of 65 may find themselves unprotected for health care at some time during the year.

In Pasco County, we are due for a reassessment of our uninsured residents. I would estimate the official number at 25 percent under the age of 65. That number does not consider the homeless population that remains largely invisible to our census or those unprotected for at least one month during the year.

In light of the above, it is very difficult to defend our current non-system of health care that seeks to protect private insurance and reject a national health care program based on a tax. If you don’t believe it is a dysfunctional system, just ask executives from General Motors or Ford.

By the way, House Resolution 676 suggests expanding Medicare to all. It has been around a couple of years. There appears to be more interest now. It will work and get Americans the health care they deserve.

Marc Yacht, who lives in Hudson, is a physician who retired earlier this year as director of the Pasco County Health Department and who volunteers for several community causes.