OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS IS BROKEN, AND IT'S GETTING WORSE FOR DECADES, HEALTH PROFESSIONALS AND PROGRESSIVE POLITICIANS HAVE SOUGHT UNIVERSIAL HEALTH CARE, BUT PROPOSALS HAVE LANGUISHED

The New York Times last month devoted a lengthy obituary to Dr. Howard Hiatt, a public health care pioneer whose advice was routinely dismissed by those who continue to benefit from our chaotic and nonsensical health care "system."

Early in his career Hiatt worked with Nobel Prize laureates in unlocking the secrets of cellular biology and years later became dean of the Harvard School of Public Health before retiring. He was 93 when he died in March.

The doctor was one of the first to call out the inequities in American health care five decades ago with his book, "America's Health in the Balance: Choice or Chance?" He declared that the answer was for Congress to establish government-run universal health insurance, modeled after the successful existing systems in Britain, Canada and China.

"I am particularly anxious to reach those who are so callous as to accept the prospect of two-class medicine in America," he told an interviewer, lamenting that in the U.S. there's a bias for expensive treatments instead of just plain basic care. It's money that drives the system, not the people's wellness.

But just like those who came before and after him, his protestations have continued to go unheeded. Our entrenched profit-driven health care and the politicians beholden to it have succeeded in maintaining the status quo.

Health care reformers have come close a couple of times in recent years. Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act definitely moved the country in the right direction, helping several million families achieve health care coverage for the first time. But it's still woefully short of where the country needs to be. Millions more are still stuck in the cracks.

Vermont's independent senator, Bernie Sanders, also came close with his "Medicare-for-All" campaign eight years ago aimed at expanding Medicare's single-payer system for senior citizen's to the entire country. Although Sanders is far from giving up, his efforts remain stalled in Congress where it's been placed on the proverbial back burner.

Meanwhile, the cost of American health care continues to skyrocket. The United States has what many studies have shown is the most expensive in the world. In 2022, U.S. health care spending reached $4.5 trillion, an average of $13,493 per person. The average cost of health care per person among our peer countries is less than half as much, yet in many cases those countries have far better health outcomes than America does.

In 1962, health care costs represented 5% of the U.S. gross national product. By 2022 it had soared to 17% and continues to rise. Economists also note that recent health care cost increases have been a major contributor to the America's inflation problems.

Certainly, medical advances, new technological procedures and the cost of drugs are major contributors to the higher costs, but the biggest problem lies in how we pay for health care. The private for-profit insurance apparatus accounts for close to 20% of the nation's health care bill.

What's astonishing is that there's little effort among insurance companies to help get these costs under control. In fact, it's the opposite. They're teaming up with private equity investors on finding ways to cut payouts and boost profits even further.

Earlier this month, a New York Times investigation found that while the insurance industry continues to blame private equity-owned hospitals and physician groups for exorbitant billing that drives up health care costs, a new tool developed with massive private equity funding is helping insurers make billions of dollars by shifting more of the costs to patients.

The tool, called Data iSight, the Times reported, has "led to low reimbursements for patients with unexpectedly large bills, slashed pay for doctors and other medical professionals and left employers that fund health plans with high, often unanticipated fees - all while making the country's biggest health insurance companies a lot of money."

Another investigation has revealed that another high-tech tool called MultiPlan is being used by the insurance industry to limit out-of-network reimbursements, again shifting astronomical medical bills to the unwary patient.

All of which should be considered an unconscionable, if not fraudulent, business practices. But our politicians refuse to act and, in fact, have opened the doors further to private insurers, allowing them to gain a foothold in government-run Medicare with the popular but questionable Medicare Advantage plans.

It's time that we reform what has become nothing more than a scam on the American people. Let's get the greed and designed mysteriousness out of this alleged system.

The answer, as Dr. Hiatt told us years ago, is a universal, affordable system that works for everyone.