Occupy Healthcare, an offshoot movement of Occupy Wall Street, is not covered as much as its parent, even though it is united in effort and, unlike the better known movement, has clear demands.
According to the site OccupyHealthcare.net, “Healthcare is a morass of competing interests, and a majority of those competing interests are committed to maintaining the status quo. Make no mistake, there is a cacophony, and this cacophony is made up of the voices telling you that change in healthcare is impossible. They are wrong.”
Whether you agree with the movement or not, knowledge is power, which is why we rounded up six things to know about the Occupy Healthcare movement:
1. It has clear principles. Unlike the Occupy Wall Street movement, Occupy Healthcare has managed to create a set of clear, guiding principles, making it easier to identify the goals of the movement and its beliefs. The site recently proposed the following:
- We believe healthcare is a right for all.
- We believe the healthcare system, as it currently stands, is too costly and ineffective.
- We believe that we should create a system that works to meet the needs of a person and community as a whole.
- We believe patients, families, and communities should be at the center of all healthcare.
- We believe that a truly effective, person-centered healthcare system should be built on prevention and wellness rather than illness and disease and that addressing social determinants of health is an integral component of improving health.
- We believe monetary incentives should be tied to better outcomes and improved health, with increased rewards for improving the health of those most vulnerable among us.
2. Supporters recognize American healthcare isn’t the best in the world. On the site KevinMD.com, Mark Ryan, MD, explained why the healthcare system is in dire need of change. He argues that “contrary to the common wisdom,” the American healthcare system isn’t the best in the world. In a series of points defending his stance, he points to a World Health Organization analysis that ranks the U.S. healthcare system 37th. Additionally, the United States ranks 39th in infant mortality, 43rd for adult female mortality, and 42nd for adult male mortality. “We rank last among seven developed Western-style democracies in U.S. healthcare performance,” Ryan wrote. “Our healthcare spending per capita is 50 percent greater than the next highest nation’s, and our healthcare spending in the U.S. is increasing faster than most other nations’.” Lastly, Ryan added, according to a recently released report from the Commonwealth Fund, "The National Scorecard of U.S. Health System Performance," the United States scored 64 out of 100 points across 42 performance indicators, lagging behind other developed nations. “Americans pay much more per person to support a healthcare system that does not function very well at all,” Ryan concluded. “[It] provides inadequate and unequal care for far too many people, and that leaves nearly 50 million Americans without health insurance. These are indicators of a system with significant, fundamental dysfunction.”
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3. It’s bringing significant issues to light. A blog post on Ascenta Health argues the healthcare system, “is an issue of equal concern,” compared to the Occupy Wall Street movement. According to the post, the system suffers from the same corporate and political “schemes” that undermine the notion of democracy and create social injustice. “Our healthcare system is actually a ‘profit-care’ system,” the post reads. “Big Pharma, ‘un-healthy’ food corporations, privatized healthcare providers, and insurance companies all stand to lose a lot of business in a society that values health over disease.” The post continued by claiming governments spend very little on health education, the dietary recommendations of federal agencies are largely funded by corporations, and if an American is ill, he/she is more likely to go into debt. “This debt burden gives governments and corrupt corporations more power over you,” the blog concluded.
4. It’s demanding more attention. According to the blog Collaborative Care, it’s time for healthcare to have an “Occupy Wall Street moment.” “Would anyone argue that healthcare it not broken?” the author wrote. “At the heart of this brokenness lies fragmentation that perpetuates this brokenness.” The post continues by questioning why the public isn’t more outraged about the broken healthcare system. “Maybe healthcare has not had it’s ‘Wall Street’ moment because there is no one place the national community can gather to express their outrage,” the author wrote. “Yes, we advocate in our own unique ways – write letters to our legislators, visit them and speak up in town hall meetings, but is this sufficient? Even if we had a special street corner to meet to talk about healthcare, would we?”
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5. It has noteworthy ties to the insurance industry. Lisa Patrick-Mudd, blog post author at the site Single Payer Now, compared today’s Occupy Healthcare movement to a similar organized movement two years ago, when demonstrations took place across the country at 15 health insurance company offices. “October 2009 was in the heat of the health reform debate, and long-time universal healthcare activists were encouraging a single payer solution, or at the very least, a public option. Neither of these ideas were taken seriously, due to the fact that the legislation was basically written by insurance company executives,” she wrote. Coincidentally, she continued, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is now under threat of being ruled unconstitutional for including an individual mandate, the “primary mechanism” for cost savings and the real “meat” of the bill, Patrick-Mudd wrote. “Activists, including myself, were very disappointed and frustrated that our message was not being heard…fast forward two years later, mass protests on Wall Street and across the globe. Demonstrators calling for an end to corporate person-hood, egregious tax breaks for the wealthiest Americans, and an end to the billions of dollars that get funneled into Washington and control politicians.”
6. It has somewhat specific demands. Patricia Salber, contributor to the blog Care and Cost, asks the most popular question of all: how does Occupy Wall Street relate to healthcare? “Well, right now, it doesn’t,” she argued. “But it should. Healthcare, in the U.S., at least, seems to serve everyone by the people who need it. For profit segments of the industry are by and large doing just about fine. Insurers are raking in record profits – in part because utilization is down, many think, because of the recession. Doctors, primary care excepted, are probably mostly in the 1 percent or, if not, in the 5 percent. Device companies, drug companies, and other healthcare services companies are making oodles of money. But patients – the 99 percent – well, they are paying more, getting less, and waiting longer. Why the heck aren’t they mad as hell?” She outlines four points that need to change within the industry:
- We need universal coverage – get everyone in the insurance pool so we eliminate cost-shifting related to the un- or underinsured.
- We need to get serious about waste. It is not OK to have our collective dollars spent on care with limited benefits (e.g., hip replacements in people with advanced Alzheimer's disease or liver transplants for an alcoholic who is still drinking).
- We need to lean our delivery systems to make them more efficient and more affordable.
- We need to much more rapidly incorporate the new technologies into everyday medical practices – why do we still have to make an appointment, drive, park, and wait for a 15-minute office visit? Technology is available now to transform many physical office visits into low cost, convenient virtual ones.
Finally, in this short video, Carmen Gonzalez, a clinical trial patient recruitment strategist affiliated with OccupyHealthcare.net, discusses the disparities in our current healthcare system.
Follow Michelle McNickle on Twitter @Michelle_writes.