December 19, 2024

The United Nations’ “Universal Declaration of Human Rights” has 30 articles delineating what “everyone has the right to,” such as work, education, rest,  leisure and “the right to form and to join trade unions.”

But the capitalist class routinely denies these rights to the workers with impunity.

Article 25 states: “Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services. … ”

Yet tens of thousands of people die every year because they cannot pay — and health insurers refuse to pay — for needed care.

That’s murder for money — big money. It recalls a footnote to Karl Marx’s Capital, in which he cites 19th-century British labor leader T.J. Dunning: “With adequate profit, capital is very bold. A certain 10% will ensure its employment anywhere; 20% certain will produce eagerness; 50% positive audacity; 100% will make it ready to trample on all human laws; 300% and there is not a crime at which it will scruple, nor a risk it will not run, even to the chance of its owner being hanged.”

Or to the chance of its CEO — such as UnitedHealth Group boss Brian Thompson  — being fatally shot by Luigi Mangione?

Death by claim denial

Denial of claims means more money in the pockets of health insurance companies. As Michael Moore pointed out in a recent essay: “In the United States, we have a whopping 1.4 million people employed with the job of DENYING HEALTH CARE, vs. only 1 million doctors in the entire country!” (Michaelmoore.com, Dec. 13)

How much profit do these denials help to generate? Since the passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the top five health insurance companies (UnitedHealth Group; Cigna; Kaiser Permanente; Elevance Health, the parent company of Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield; and CVS Health, which acquired Aetna in 2018) have raked in $371 billion. UnitedHealth accounts for 40% of that total. (Jacobin.com, Dec. 11)

Gross margin per enrollee, which is the average amount per enrollee by which insurance company income exceeds what the company pays in claims, is a whopping $1,982 for Medicare Advantage plans. UnitedHealthcare is one of the biggest promoters of these privatized Medicare plans. (kff.org, July 2)

Health care is a right!

That’s not even the whole story of profiteering off that basic human need and right, medical care. For-profit hospital chains are making billions in profits. Even so-called “non-profit” hospitals are allowed to divert income toward grossly high executive salaries.

And then there are the superprofits of Big Pharma. Greedwatch reports, “In 2023, 16 of the largest drug companies reported $684 billion in revenue, a figure that is higher than the gross domestic product (GDP) of 88 percent of the countries in the world.

“This eye-popping revenue reflects the record-high prices drug companies set for drugs they launched in 2023 and overall prices that are three to eight times higher for U.S. patients than for patients in other high-income countries.” (protectourcare.com)

Every single person in the U.S. could have free health care. Take out the profits, and the costs of providing that care will fall dramatically. And funds could come from cutting the bloated Pentagon budget –  $824.3 billion for fiscal year 2024.

Even many developed capitalist countries have some form of a no-cost or low-cost national health care system. But to implement something similar in the U.S. would take a huge bite out of the medical-industrial complex’s bottom line – that’s the profits for the owners.

It will take a huge fight to take health care out of private hands, but it is a just fight. It won’t be won by individual acts of righteous violence like Mangione’s. It will take an independent, anti-capitalist mass movement based on the workers and oppressed.

Health care is a right! Fight, fight, fight!