Your Health Reform List of Terms

by Tex Norman⁽⁶³⁾

EINO [Everybody In, Nobody Out]

The slogan, Everybody In, Nobody Out was first cointed by Quentin Young, founder of Physicians for a National Health Program.

Fiscal Responsibility

Being responsible with money is the simple definition, but the phrase has long been associated with the Republican Party. The associate of the Republicans to Fiscal Responsibility is based more on misconceptions, and blindly accepted assumptions. In truth Republicans like Reagan and Bush II have shown themselves to be " fiscally irresponsible " when compared to many Democrats. The concepts that revolve around the term Fiscal Responsibility, are things like:
- a commitment to having minor or no Federal Budget Deficit
- decreasing the Gross National Debt.

GW Bush has spent federal dollars at more than twice the yearly rate of the Clinton presidency and meanwhile cut taxes, mostly for the wealthiest 5% of Americans.

For Profit/Non-profit

If the service provided is the primary goal of a business or organization then that is a Non-profit. The Non-profits may care about money, and may be in a position where they need to make enough money to pay for their own operating expenses, but their interest in money is to pay the employees, and finance their operational expenses. A non-profit may even seek to earn enough money to pay for expansions in services, or locations to conduct their Non-profit activities.
If a business or corporation is set up so that its primary responsibility is to bring its owners or shareholders more money coming back to them than was invested by them then this would be a For Profit business. A For Profit business may actually operate at a loss, usually at the outset, and a For Profit business may accept and expect to loss money for some period of years before eventually earning a profit, nevertheless, the long term goal is to make money. If a For Profit company can’t make a substantial profit within a reasonable length of time then that For Profit business will go out of business.

Incremental Health Care Reform:

If anyone advocates for health care reforms that leave the fundamental structure of our current health care system in place, that is Incremental Health Care. Whenever you hear the term Incremental Health Care you know that the users of that term are signaling that they are for making very small expansions of our existing health care programs, very gradual extension of some health care to the public, and they are also signaling that they oppose and will seek to prevent all proposed cutbacks to our current health care programs. Advocates of Incremental Health Care Reform want to make tiny changes in health care, to expand very slowly and cautiously, and seem to prefer the status quo over real health care reform.

Loss Ratio (or Profit/Loss Ratio):

The health insurance industry terminology for funds expended by the company to serve any individual policyholder’s health needs is known as a loss ratio. This term may seem innocuous, but there is evidence that in some cases insurance companies will actually calculate the profit vs. loss that comes from refusing to pay for certain medical procedures. If a company were to automatically deny approval of cancer treatments until the policy holder dies, and if the families sue, these companies may calculate the cost of paying for all those procedures against the cost of a few law suites. If the numbers show they make more money denying benefits, then the profit loss ratio is good, and the denial of coverage goes forward.

National Health Insurance:

National health insurance is a form of health insurance that insures a population against meeting the costs associated with illness and accidents. If all or nearly all of the citizens of a country receive health care coverage which is paid for by the government, then it is National Health Insurance. It is insurance provided by the nation to all nationals. Some use the term National Health Insurance as a synonym for single payer insurance, where one entity, the national government, pays all of the health insurance claims for all its citizens following a governmentally created set of regulations.

Single-payer Health Care

Single-payer health care is an American term describing the payment for doctors, hospitals and other providers of health care from a single government administrated fund. Single-payer Health Care means that all the cost for that health care comes from the tax payers. Since there are systems where everyone does not pay income tax, some countries have financed their single-payer Health Care through sales tax rather than from Income tax. This way, everyone pays something. The sales tax may be shockingly high, but the benefits of universal health care is often seen as “worth it.” Just because there is Single-payer Health Care does not mean that all the doctors and other health care workers will be employees of the state. That could happen, of course, but it is just as possible, and perhaps preferable for health care practitioners to set up private practices. In a similar way, private corporations could still be involved in equipment sales, pharmaceutical sale, and in the administration of hospitals.

Social Medicine:

T he fact is that we define diseases and health, as well as the methods we use for diagnosis and treatment, and we come to general agreement on medical prodical for treating illness. We have a shared agreement on who can be a medical practitioner, on how credentials are earned, what education and internships were necessary, and so on and so forth. Since we all share protocols, educational requirements, and certification procedures we all are involved in social medicine.

UHC [Universal Health Coverage]:

Universal health care is health care coverage which is extended to all eligible residents of a governmental region.
When everyone in the country is completely covered for all of their medical needs and nobody left outside the system that is Universal Health Insurance. Obama has proposed something less than Universal Health Insurance. If a system covers say 95% or 98% of all Americans and we might argue about how good or bad the proposal is, but what is certain is that such a proposal is NOT a proposal for universal health care because if anyone is left out it's not universal. Until we have a health care coverage where " everyone is in and nobody is out " we will not have universal health care.

Some believe that wide spread (though not Universal) health coverage is a step toward universal health care, and they are probably right. The problem with these small steps toward progress is that leadership changes and priorities shift and often a progressive program stops part way toward the goal and leaves us with something in the middle. The middle may not be as good as the goal we were aiming for and might even be worse than the system it was seeking to reform. Like a light switch, you may turn it on, or turn it off, but if you stop half way between on and off you may end up an electrical arch, with flying sparks, and the danger of shorting out the whole system.

Article submitted Saturday, June 13, 2009 & read 1239 times.

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