3.8 Universal Healthcare

Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential health-care services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all

United States

Resources

• Super cheap health insurance: https://www.amerigroup.com/
• Sign up for Obamacare: https://www.getamericacovered.org/
• Vaccines: Find out what vaccines you need to get by checking your vaccination records online. The easiest way is to search online the name of your state, followed by “vaccination records”. This CDC website provides links to state websites although these are not direct links to the vaccination record site. Your record will show you which vaccines you’ve already had and which vaccines you need to get. https://www.cdc.gov/publichealthgateway/healthdirectories/healthdepartments.html
• If for some reason you don’t have a record, here is a list of vaccines you need to make sure you have. If you know you’ve had vaccines but aren’t sure which ones, ask your doctor which vaccines you should still get anyway.https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/vaccines-age.html

Action Tasks

• Help people enroll in the Affordable Care Act through Get America Covered during open enrollment periods. https://www.getamericacovered.org/take-action/

Informational Resources

• Articles on healthcare solutions: https://thesystemsthinker.com/sectors/healthcare/
• One section of this article is on healthcare: https://www.americanprogress.org/article/top-12-solutions-cut-poverty-united-states/
• Drug pricing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7LgT4_jkLA
• Private Equity Hospitals: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8dHVp3b/ bill patents 20% more, prefer to bill out of network, reduce doctor autonomy and evidence-based care
• US Healthcare is a 4 trillion dollar industry.
• Profit-driven tactics increase nursing home mortality by 10%.
• This is how prior authorizations work: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8dHyf3Y/
• Rural Medicine: https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8dHXRBP/
• Necropolitics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necropolitics
• Attempts to understand healthcare bills https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2016/07/obamacare-opposition-infographics-strategy-000157/
• Industrial Complex: (This one does a pretty bad job at explaining why things are on the chart and what it means.) https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mRCN9jv5v8g/WfZ36URV78I/AAAAAAAABb0/lcSA1_m2j4Uq0EtqbsT2qbm07nxY5Ch_ACLcBGAs/s1600/mic-visual-version-2015-12.jpg
• Potential source explaining health insurance terms, I haven’t watched it yet: https://youtu.be/-wpHszfnJns
• Rural hospital closures https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8Uak115/
• Barriers autistic people face in getting medical care. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZT8UaTN7x/

Stocks

• Medicaid
• Medicare
• Medical school
• Residencies
• Certificates
• Doctors
• Nurses
• CNAs/RNAs
• Other medical staff (ex. technicians, PTs, etc.)
• Other staff (ex. Chefs, janitors)
• Hospitals
• Emergency Room
• Waiting Room
• Beds
• Rooms
• Urgent care
• Outpatient (ex. regular appointments)
• General Practitioner
• Specialist
• Appointments
• Referrals
• Prescriptions
• Patients
• Bedside manner
• Compassion
• Job satisfaction
• Burnout
• Departments
• Pharmacy
• Management
• Billing
• HR
• Food
• Medical Records

Flows Patients are dying because:

• staff shortages, caused by toxic workplaces/poor working conditions & ?low pay?
• long emergency room wait times
• accusations of faking or exaggerating symptoms
• discrimination
• misdiagnoses
• medical abuse
• medical neglect
• can’t afford copays
• can’t afford their medication
• gaps in prescription renewal

System Traps

• People are not going to medical school because of high costs of education/avoid student loan debt.
• People who graduate from medical school can’t get residencies. https://www.vox.com/22989930/residency-match-physician-doctor-shortage-pandemic-medical-school
• There is high turnover because of toxic workplaces.
• Doctors are leaving the field because of toxic workplaces.
• People are not choosing careers in medicine because of toxic workplaces.
• Toxic people are attracted to the medical field because of the reputation and power imbalance between doctors and patients.
• It is difficult for doctors to open up their own practices.

Rules Affordable Care Act

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

Paradigms

• The healthcare system is a safety net and an ally, not an industrial complex that must be fought with uncertain levels of support regarding survival.
• The healthcare system provides care based on science and the patient’s culture, and not the doctor’s culture. (Currently the healthcare system practices a lot of unscientific medicine according to the doctor’s culture)

Goals Universal Healthcare covers all health needs. This would include:

• dental
• mental health care
• functional medicine
• ALL disability services, including but not limited to: caregiving, palliative care, accommodations
• rent, if the person’s health problems are caused by their environment (ex. homelessness, abuse, DV, slumlord neglect)
• sexual healthcare, including all forms of contraception
• reproductive care, including doulas
• gender affirming care
• eastern/natural medicine
• hospice and death doulas

Reinforcing feedback loops Services that would prevent hospitalization, improve patient health and reduce costs:

• Palliative care
• Doctor home visits
• Integrated maintenance practice
• Medication caretakers
• Numbers
• Essential Markup Policy (Essential goods and services can not have a profit markup above a certain percentage)