Medicare for All is a winner

Josh Turek

Those who wish me silent six feet under may be disappointed to hear that my blood test came back last week looking pretty good.

Nine months following cancer surgery at the Mayo Clinic my prostate is carved by cryotherapy (freezing of the tumor) but apparently clean. Medicare allowed me to go to Rochester. Our newspaper’s health insurance plan confines you to regional providers offering fewer solutions. Medicare is one of the few benefits of growing old.

You can choose your own doctor! Mayo seems happy to have me. You don’t have to ask permission from the insurance company to get quality care. You can choose the University of Iowa or go to Omaha.

A not-so-secret dirty secret: Health insurance companies turn a profit by denying care. A nurse on the phone from Timbuktu is getting between you and your doctor so the insurance company can justify itself.

Call me a socialist or a communist. It is a relief to be unshackled from corporate health insurance. I’ve never understood why it should be the responsibility of businesses to provide for health care. We are editors, not health insurance administrators. We should divert the money we’re already spending to Medicare for All.

It will make health care better in Storm Lake, Sioux City and Des Moines. We can see that Iowa is spending more money on privately managed Medicaid than it did when the state administered the program. Rural health care has suffered terribly.

The procedure performed on me at Mayo is not available in Sac City or Sioux City. It is cheaper than conventional cancer treatments, it is effective, and it is done on an out-patient basis during one procedure. Medicare pays for it.

We can afford it. We’re already paying princely sums in premiums. Our out-of-pocket on a corporate plan is $5,000. The co-pays are frightful. Medicare and Medicaid do not reimburse providers at their cost; private-pay patients subsidize government pay. Incorporating younger, healthier patients into the Medicare system can float the boat — you cut out the profit factor. Our tax dollars would be better spent at the University of Iowa Hospital than bombing Iran.

The current system protects mediocrity by limiting competition through insurance contracts. Sick people are a captive market. Denying care is a moral stain. We should plumb our conservative souls and arrive at a more pragmatic solution.

Zach Lahn, the Republican candidate for governor, says he thinks private enterprise can do a better job at health insurance. We have a fundamental disagreement. I wish him well on the farm at Belle Plaine and trust he can swing the premium on a Farm Bureau policy since he can afford to self-finance his campaign.

Rob Sand, the Democratic candidate, would offer a start by undoing the privatization of Medicaid. We need to restore federal funding for Medicaid. That would help to protect rural health providers.

The real answer is beyond Des Moines. Democrat Josh Turek has to force Republican Ashley Hinson into a full debate over single-payer health care in their race for the US Senate. If anyone has actual street credibility on this issue, it is Turek in a wheel chair. Hinson claims she would take care of veterans. What about their sons?

It’s hard for most of us to imagine what a victim of Agent Orange goes through. Turek had 21 surgeries by age 12 from spina bifida. Turek managed to rise above it, win a Paralympics gold medal, and shoot hoops with Barack Obama.

A rectal exam is almost too much for me to endure. Navigating health care decisions is frightening enough without worrying whether the tin cup at the convenience store is getting any donations.

Sand is smart to put strengthening Medicaid at the top of his agenda. Turek should go all in on Medicare for All. He says he would “introduce a public option.” That’s a weak cup of tea. We have waited on a “public option” for 20 years. Medicare for All is a winning issue. Ask any senior citizen — they love Social Security and Medicare. The health system so strained the Turek family that they had to get their clothes from Goodwill. Is that how we take care of veterans and their families?

It isn’t good enough. If Turek intends to win, he should get on board with Sand and create a campaign to get every Iowan Medicare. At least Turek would attempt to restore funding for Medicaid, which could save a lot of rural hospitals and clinics. Medicare for All would give everyone options like I get at age 69. Why make people wait?

Those who wish me dead for appreciating socialized medicine should note I also gave up cigarettes. We will keep haranguing until we run out of breath: The corporate insurance system is a cancer on the body politic. Cure it.

Art Cullen is the editor of the Storm Lake Times Pilot in Northwest Iowa, where this column appeared. His latest book, Dear Marty, We Crapped In Our Nest: Notes from the Edge of the World, is available from Ice Cube Press. For more columns and editorials, please consider a subscription to the Times Pilot. Or, if you wish, you can make a tax-deductible gift to the Western Iowa Journalism Foundation to support independent community journalism in rural Iowa. Thanks.

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