My father is a nephrologist, a kidney doctor, and his practice of three physicians in a relatively low-risk field pays $45,000 in malpractice insurance every year. For his obstetrician-gynecologist colleagues, the costs generally run between $100,000 and $200,000.
With a profound commitment to patient care, my father is one of those doctors about whom people say, "They don't make them like that anymore." I can hardly go anywhere in my area without running into someone who hears of my last name and immediately asks if I'm related to "Dr. Ram." Upon an affirmative answer, I am, without fail, told a story about how my father has taken care of some loved one better than any other doctor the person can think of, what a wonderful, caring man and fantastic doctor he is. Much of his practice involves the indigent population of rural Belle Glade, a poor farming community where many people are without insurance of any kind, but the story is not one limited to the poverty-stricken. Seventy-three percent of uninsured adults are full or part-time workers, and many more belong to working families.
President Bush has failed our country these past four years-he has failed my father, his colleagues, the 45 million uninsured Americans, families across the nation, elderly citizens on Medicare, you and me. He has done nothing to the costs of insurance, and his Medicare prescription drug plan is both insufficient and counterproductive.
Right now, the drug companies are making $139 billion in profit because, under the president's leadership, Medicare is not allowed to bargain with them to receive lower rates on prescriptions for seniors. This is the same technique the Veteran's Association uses to provide drugs at a lower cost for veterans. In addition, the president blocked the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. Medicare premiums are up 17 percent, and even the so-called prescription drug benefits themselves shortchange our seniors.
John Kerry has a plan to fix what's wrong with the American health care system, which has never needed so much help as it does now. The proposal's main action focuses on government assumption of catastrophic health insurance, one of the major factors causing insurance companies to push premiums higher and higher. Not only do these long-term expenses strain the system, they can also make it terribly difficult for people suffering from pre-existing illnesses to find insurance at all. My friend Michael, for example, a 24-year-old, is a 14-year cancer survivor, having been diagnosed with a brain tumor when he was 10. Now, it is virtually impossible to find an insurance company that will agree to cover him and he must constantly be aware of his current and potential employers' health benefits as a matter of life and death. Once the burden of catastrophic costs, such as those stemming from extreme and long-term illnesses, is lifted, the overall expense of health care will drop dramatically.
Additionally, John Kerry has a strategy to cover all American children. Currently, Medicaid is paid for by the states, but under Kerry's design the federal government would assume its costs and the states would agree to fund the Children's Health Insurance Program. Kids would be automatically enrolled in the program through attendance at school, and the states would widen eligibility to impoverished children by 300 percent.
Right now the Federal Employees Health Plan is widely recognized as one of the best insurance policies available, and John Kerry would allow all Americans to buy into the program. Not only would this enable the general public to have the same health insurance policy as their representatives in Congress, it would also increase competition in the insurance business, serving to further drive prices down.
The only part of the health care system that Republicans have tried to address is the relentless and often trivial lawsuits doctors face. While the Republicans attempt to pin the problem of malpractice insurance unavailability exclusively on trial lawyers like John Edwards, the fact remains that there are good and bad practitioners in every field. John Kerry has the right idea by making trial lawyers assume responsibility for cases they choose to take and not simply putting a band-aid on the problem by capping tort rewards.
Right now what our country needs are solutions, not just more of the same. Americans both need and deserve affordable health care. We are faced with a choice this November: for a better future, one with medical care for all our nation's children, one where our seniors are not forced to choose between their medication and their rent, one where doctors are not driven out of practice everyday, one where you and I can live in a society of fairness and assurance-or for more of the same. The latter is what George Bush promises you. He has had four years to make headway on the problem, but it has only gotten worse and worse. John Kerry can do better than our current president. We can do better than our current president.