Dennis talks about health care
From a speech in Roseburg, Oregon, on March 28, 2004:
No matter where I go in America, I'm hearing some of the most horrendous stories about how people are being reduced to poverty because of changes in their health care status. More and more Americans are finding out that they can't afford to be sick and they can't afford to be well, and insurance companies are making money not providing health care. That's exactly the direction this country finds itself in.
How did we get in a condition where people can't see the doctors of their choice, doctors can't provide the treatment that they want, insurance agents end up intervening between a doctor and a patient, and all of medicine becomes about profit and not about people?
You, and you and you and you are already paying for a universal standard of care. You're already paying for it, but you're not getting it. Let me explain to you why this is true. The United States right now spends $1.6 trillion dollars a year on health services.
If all that money went into health care for the American people, let me tell you what we'd have enough money to pay for. We'd have enough money to pay for all medically necessary care for all Americans, in addition to that, fully-paid dental care, fully-paid vision care, fully-paid mental health care, fully-paid long-term care, fully-paid prescription drugs, fully-paid for complimentary alternative preventative medicine. It would all be paid for.
So many of us who've experienced the chance to work with alternative medicine, complimentary medicine, preventative medicine, know that when we take more responsibility for our own health, we sometimes discover a path that works for us, that's much cheaper than the conventional pathic medicine. We have the opportunity to actually participate in our own healing. It's a marvelous thing. The insurance policies, they won't even touch this. Why? Because there's not a lot of profit in it.
Now here we are, all painfully aware of the high cost of prescription drugs. You would think that the government would go in the direction of trying to lower the cost of prescription drugs. But this administration took cost containment off of what the drug companies will charge Medicare to provide prescription drugs, and as a result have created a condition where Medicare is destroyed.
I believe that Oregonians who are familiar with a whole range of health care issues have the opportunity in this campaign to send the Democratic Party in a direction of a serious discussion about a national health care plan. We're already paying for this; we're just not getting it. We recognize that the only way to do this is to set aside the interest of the insurance industry, set aside the interest of the pharmaceutical industry and start upholding high the public interest, the interest of the people in this country to have health care for all! Hold that up!
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