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Governor Mike Rounds signed HB 1169 into law on March 3 to create the Zaniya Project Task Force. This group -- four legislators plus at least 16 folks appointed by the governor -- is tasked with coming up with a plan "to provide health insurance to South Dakota residents who lack health insurance coverage." Additionally, the task force must "create efficiencies in the purchase of health insurance."
Not much has appeared in print about the task force, although the rumblings seem to be that South Dakota may follow Massachusetts in combining a mandate that most people buy health insurance with subsidies for folks who really can't afford it.
The task force faces a daunting task in determining how to measure the positive outcomes. How do we balance access with efficiency, personal health with fiscal health?
Perhaps the Zaniya Project Task Force will take a look at another red state -- Cuba! -- for ideas on how to achieve our health care goals. Despite having a per capita GDP of $3900 (that's less than a seventh of South Dakota's), Cuba manages a life expectancy of 77 years, just one year less than South Dakota's. Cuba's infant mortality rate is 6.04 deaths per 1000 live births; South Dakota's is 7.2 per 1000.
Why are Cubans arguably as healthy as South Dakotans? An AP article by Will Weissert making the rounds today suggests a number of possible contributing factors:
- "...most prescription drugs and visits to the doctor are free..."
- "...physicians encourage preventive care"
- Cuba's national health care program ensures "a family doctor on almost every block" (according to 90-year-old Havana resident Luis Tache)
- "A relaxed lifestyle, which prizes time spent with family over careers, helps keep Cubans healthy" [emphasis by this family-values editor]
(By the way, while I'm cherry-picking health care numbers, consider this: Cuba has a lower incidence of HIV/AIDS than South Dakota. Cuba's success against HIV/AIDS takes place amidst easygoing attitudes about sex -- not exactly the terms I'd use to describe the typical South Dakota mindset. There -- discuss.)
Personally, when I developed mono in Jamaica, it ranks as about the least enjoyable experience of my life... I was misdiagnosed and given 3 different antibiotics (they still use first generation antibiotics like penicillin and erythromycin). I can't imagine that Cuba would light-years ahead of Jamaica, when their economy is worse.
ReplyDeleteMoreover, if South Dakota was able to secure an agreement with Hugo Chavez where he gives us practically free oil for their healthcare just out of for our leader, then we would be comparing apples to apples.
It's Hugo that is keeping Cuba afloat.
I agree, given your bad experience in Jamaica, one wouldn't expect the situation in Cuba to be much better. Then again, even in America, land of the best health care money can buy, "At least 1.5 million Americans are sickened, injured or killed each year by errors in prescribing, dispensing and taking medications" (Mark Kaufman, staff writer, "Medication Errors Harming Millions, Report Says," Washington Post, 2006.07.21, p. A08, posted online here). 44,000 to 100,000 Americans die annually of medical errors of various sorts.
ReplyDeleteI welcome figures on medical error rates in Jamaica, Cuba, and elsewhere. But it appears that money -- or a big chunk of GDP spent on health care -- doesn't guarantee we get the right pills. Of course, neither does cozying up to Hugo Chavez.
David links to an interesting article on the quality of the Cuban health care system. Having perused the BBC article myself, I find it does not suggest that Chavez is "keeping Cuba afloat" with free oil. Rather, Cuba is able to use its remarkably high-quality health care resources to make a fair-looking trade with Venezuela: Venezeula gives Cuba a one-billion-dollar discount on oil over the next 15 years; in return, Cuba sends 14,000 medics to provide health care for low-income Venezuelans and offers Venezuelans "free surgery and speecialised treatment in Cuban hospitals" (Tom Fawthorp, "Medical Know-How Boosts Cuban Wealth," BBC News online, 2006.01.17).
Building a knowledge-based economy that makes it easier to trade for raw materials -- sounds like a recipe for a healthy economy, not to mention healthy people. If South Dakota could produce so many doctors that we could afford to export them to other countries in exchange for other goods and services, we'd be in good shape.
Well, that's one way to look at it. Call me jaded, but I'm inclined to believe that there's probably a hint of corruption in any negotiation between Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro. The fact that there is someone, anyone, on this good earth who is funding a tyrant like Castro makes my liberty-loving blood boil.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I am glad that to hear that the doctors are getting a good education. I bet repressing malpractice suits helps with the economic side of health care... as does having a ruler who needs constant class-A medical attention to postpone his black soul from facing judgment.
If their doctors were worse, they'd be a democracy by now.
There are some people who just plain and simple refuse to be responsible for themselves. They refuse to take a job that offers benefits, but they see nothing wrong with going ahead with a pregnancy anyway because they know they will still get care and won't have to pay anything for it. A responsible person will at least make an attempt to find a job with benefits before purposely racking up huge medical bills that the rest of us will have to pay for them. I don't think socialized medicine is the answer either.
ReplyDeleteSomehow, I don't think women geting pregnant are the biggest threat to our national security. I thought we liked babies. The above comment doesn't sound like a very pro-life sentiment to me....
ReplyDelete"Somehow, I don't think women geting pregnant are the biggest threat to our national security."
ReplyDeleteNo, but a culture that fosters irresponsible people making irresponsible choices has always been the #1 killer of super-power civilizations.
I never said that pregnancy is a threat to society. All I said was that a person should feel responsible for himself and any children he/she creates. People should think thru their decisions and the ramifications of said decisions and not just rely on society to pay their bills. I am all for a limited social net for those who truly can't care for themselves or happen upon hard times, but people also need to be responsible instead of relying on that social network when they are fully capable of supporting themselves.
ReplyDeleteO.K., nonnie, so when "half of all U.S. bankruptcies are caused by soaring medical bills and most people sent into debt by illness are middle-class workers with health insurance" [Maggie Fox, "Half of Bankruptcy Due to Medical Bills -- U.S. Study," Reuters, 2005.02.02, posted on CommonDreams.org], does that qualify as "hard times" when society might deign to step in and help? Are you ready to that all those people going bankrupt because of illness did something to deserve their suffering?
ReplyDeleteAnd nonnie, I'm still waiting for your quantification of the threat posed to society by all those women you allege "see nothing wrong with going ahead with a pregnancy anyway because they know they will still get care and won't have to pay anything for it." Again, if we are a pro-life state, shouldn't we be happy to do anything we can to help babies come into the world happy and healthy? What's more important, helping a baby live or teaching allegedly irresponsible women a lesson? And beyond that, what's more important: fretting over the unquantified harms of these Rush-Limbaugh ghost-stories of naughty naughty poor people tearing this country apart, or the more easily quantifiable examples of the government handing out tax breaks to the richest and most powerful people and corporations in the world, those entities who should be in the best position to support themselves without handouts from the government?
ReplyDelete