{"id":2975,"date":"2017-09-07T14:44:59","date_gmt":"2017-09-07T18:44:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2975"},"modified":"2017-09-07T14:45:50","modified_gmt":"2017-09-07T18:45:50","slug":"adam-gaffney-and-the-right-to-health-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2975","title":{"rendered":"Adam Gaffney and the Right to Health in History"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the United States, there are two major camps when it comes to healthcare.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/341255272&amp;color=%23ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;visual=true\" width=\"100%\" height=\"300\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>There are those who believe healthcare is a commodity \u2013 on the same playing field as cars and jewelry.<\/p>\n<p>Or as one surgeon wrote in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1971 \u2013 \u201cMedical care is neither a right nor a privilege \u2013 it is a service that is provided by doctors and others to people who wish to purchase it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And there are those, like intensive care doctor and single payer advocate Adam Gaffney, who see it as a human right.<\/p>\n<p>Gaffney has a new book out \u2013 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Heal-Humankind-Right-Health-History\/dp\/1138067229\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1504809273&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=adam+gaffney\">To Heal Humankind: The Right to Health in History (Routledge, 2018).<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Gaffney traces the debate throughout history. And in reading the book, you realize \u2013 the push for single payer in the United States is just part of the ongoing historic battle between the two camps.<\/p>\n<p>One star of Gaffney\u2019s book is Aneurin Bevan, a politician from Wales who helped push through the National Health Service Act of 1946 in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>During the debate over the bill, there was a question as to whether the wealthy should be included in the service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSociety becomes more wholesome, more serene and spiritually healthier, if it knows that its citizens have at the back of their consciousness the knowledge that not only themselves, but all their fellows, have access, when ill, to the best that medical skill can provide,\u201d Bevan said.<\/p>\n<p>And the National Health Service was put in place by 1948. Everyone was included.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cShortly before its onset, a four-page leaflet was mailed to every house and apartment to announce the new system, and the text of this document speaks to its comprehensiveness and universality,\u201d Gaffney writes.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018The NHS,\u2019 its first page reads, \u2018will provide you with all medical, dental, and nursing care. \u00a0Everyone \u2013 rich or poor, man, woman or child \u2013 can use it or any part of it. There are no charges, except for a few special items.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201c\u2018There are no insurance qualifications.\u2019 The document proceeds to describe how, from age 16 and up, everyone can select the doctor of her choice, and how the NHS would cover maternity services, \u2018all forms of treatment in general or special hospitals,\u2019 mental healthcare, surgical care, prescription drugs, dental care, eye care, and \u2018home health services\u2019\u2014all without charge. \u2018From then on,\u2019 as historian Rudolf Klein puts it in his history of the service, \u2018everyone was entitled, as of right, to free care\u2014whether provided by a general practitioner or by a hospital doctor\u2014financed by the state.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bevan was eventually appointed Minister of Labor, but resigned in 1951 when the government opened the door to co-pays for prescription drugs and glasses.<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward to today.<\/p>\n<p>Gaffney is a single payer advocate with Physicians for a National Health Program.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.singlepayeraction.org\/2017\/08\/31\/single-payer-doctors-out-sanders-for-watered-down-bill\/\">And last week PNHP said it could not support a single payer bill<\/a> to be introduced by Senator Bernie Sanders if the bill included co-pays or deductibles \u2013 mirroring Bevan\u2019s complaint in his resignation speech.<\/p>\n<p>Where would Gaffney draw the line?<\/p>\n<p>Gaffney too would not support a bill that has co-pays and deductibles.<\/p>\n<p>The Sanders&#8217; bill reportedly would only cover U.S. citizens \u2013 not everybody residing in the country.<\/p>\n<p>Where would Gaffney come down on that contentious issue?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs a caveat to what I\u2019m about to say, let me say this \u2013 I very well may welcome a single payer bill, even though I don\u2019t agree with every element in it,\u201d Gaffney told Single Payer Action podcast host Russell Mokhiber. \u201cI am in favor of covering everybody in the country, not just citizens. We can afford it. It\u2019s the right thing to do. And I\u2019m very much in favor of covering everybody, regardless of citizen status.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn terms of deal breakers \u2013 it does have to be a real single payer system. And I understand that the Sanders\u2019 bill is going to be a real single payer system. A prolonged transition period, I\u2019m not in favor of. But that\u2019s also more of a mechanics issue, a practical issue that we might disagree with. It\u2019s not so much an issue of deep principle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cCo-payments I feel much more strongly about. I feel very strongly that co-payments not play a major role and I would prefer zero role. I\u2019ll have to read the bill in its entirety and see what it does. I\u2019m not hearing there\u2019s going to be an opt-out. I\u2019m hearing it\u2019s going to be real single payer. And I have heard that the role for co-pays may be small. But I haven\u2019t read the bill. We\u2019ll have to see. We\u2019ll know soon enough. And we\u2019ll be able to make an informed judgement.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The weakness of many single payer proposals is sketchiness on the finances. What plan do you favor?<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHR 676 includes payroll taxes, a tax on the top five percent of income earners and a couple of other taxes,\u201d Gaffney said. \u201cBut it\u2019s not delineated in incredible depth. In theory, my approach is progressive taxation. That helps address the issue of income inequality, while simultaneously creating a single payer system. I would prefer some combination of progressive taxes on income and wealth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.singlepayeraction.org\/2017\/09\/07\/adam-gaffney-and-the-right-to-health-in-history\/\"><em>(via Single Payer Action Newswire)<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the United States, there are two major camps when it comes to healthcare. There are those who believe healthcare is a commodity \u2013 on the same playing field as cars and jewelry. Or as one surgeon wrote in the &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/?p=2975\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2975"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2977,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2975\/revisions\/2977"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/morgancountyusa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}