Privatisation in healthcare is un-Epicurean

“Earlier this year, the Justice Department filed a lawsuit, based on evidence from a whistleblower, against United Health Group, the largest provider of subsidised private medical insurance for the elderly, accusing it of overcharging the government by more than $1 billion, claiming patients were sicker than they actually were.

“The FBI estimates that fraud, both private and public, accounts for up to 10 per cent of total US healthcare expenditure, or about $350 billion, of the annual $3.54 trillion that Americans spend on healthcare. The scale of medical fraud in the UK is still small by comparison, but some of the companies that have paid huge fraud fines in the US – including UnitedHealth, McKesson, Celgene and the Hospital Corporation of America – are becoming increasingly involved in British NHS privatisation schemes, in accordance with the government’s wishes.

“In Britain the Health and Social Care Act, passed in 2012, was intended to increase privatisation, outsourcing, inter-regional competition and ‘marketisation’ in an already strained system. There is little sign that it is improving services or reducing costs, but private firms see profits to be made.” (Dave Lindorf, London Review of Books, Nov. 2017).

Improve services and reduce costs? It won’t. Never does. The bosses capture the savings
for themselves and,to a lesser extent, the shareholders.

In the United States the medical system is a dog’s dinner (which unfairly casts aspersions on dogs and dinners). Tens of thousands of people will shortly have no medical cover (who cares? – the election donors are happy). The whole system is a bureaucratic nightmare, designed to make profit first and heal the sick second – and few (except Bernie and his supporters) have caught on. The worst are the profiteering drug companies who are actively fuelling the opioid death crisis, while bribing Congressmen to turn a blind eye. Trump has appointed the CEO of one of Eli Lilly, one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies, to oversee Health & Human Services, a case of the fox guarding the chicken run.

I know I discuss healthcare frequently, but it is with good reason. The American system is over-commercialized, caters to special interests, is extraordinarily expensive and results in a shameful level of national life expectancy. And the advocates of the present system are proud of that?

One Comment

  1. The fact is that no one outside America regards the American system as a model to follow. Plenty of people like the German, Swiss and Dutch systems, despite the high degree of private involvement in them. Many also like the government run systems of Britain, Norway and Canada. I’m open to some private involvement in healthcare. But it’s clear the way the Americans have privately run healthcare benefits no one except the private companies themselves.

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