The Commonwealth Fund offers all sorts of useful information about America's inferior health care system, which they give an overall score of 65 out of 100 (scores like that would get me kicked out of DSU). Among the lowlights of the scorecard they issued yesterday:
- 75 million Americans age 19–64 uninsured or underinsured
- U.S. ranks last out of 19 countries in "mortality amenable to health care"; i.e., if we offered coverage and care as effectively as France, Germany, Canada, et al., we could save 101,000 lives a year
- our lowest score: a 52 out of 100 in efficiency (so much for free market fundamentalism)
- more Americans suffering debilitating health problems (18% in 2006, up from 15% in 2004)
- one-third of adults reporting mistakes in their health care
- less than half of U.S. adults say they can get "rapid appointments" when they're sick (what? people have to wait for care in America?)
- 37% of adults skip some care because of cost; overseas, that number is 5%
Save lives. Save money. Support health care, not health capitalism. Support single-payer, not-for-profit health coverage.
Cory,
ReplyDeleteLet me see if I've got this right: student, parent, politician, artist, poet, prolific blogger, biker, and super fast walker.
Email me your source of energy before the Department of Homeland Security takes you to an undisclosed location and dissects you for it.
Cory,
ReplyDeleteIf you dont like America and the free enterprise system, maybe you should move to Canada and have your life controlled by the government.
Maybe you should look in the mirror and see if YOU have the problem
I suspect that health care might be improve in the USA if it were socialized. But I've never experienced the system in any other country, so I cannot know for sure.
ReplyDeleteI have a few Canadian colleagues. None of them behave very much like their government controls their lives. In fact, they seem less uptight than most Americans I know.
It's a visceral reaction: the notion of "socialized" or "nationalized" anything provokes an automatic negative response in the American brain.
I love America; that's why I get so torqued about letting other countries make us look like chumps when it comes to health care.
ReplyDeleteHow many illegal aliens are counted in that 75 million? How many of those could afford health insurance but choose not to get it?
ReplyDeleteAnon 11:59 ...
ReplyDeleteYou bring up something I had not thought of in this debate -- until now.
I doubt that many illegal aliens can afford health insurance. But I sure don't want my tax dollars to buy it for them.
Wow—the illegal immigrant red herring. Keep looking for an excuse not to solve the problem. You can try to foist the blame on some undeserving others of your imagination, but that won't change the fact that we need to reform our inferior health care system to save money and save lives. You can't blame immigrants or young healthy people choosing not to buy health insurance for medical errors, preventable deaths, lower life expectancy, delays in getting appointments (no, illegals can't jump the queue any more than you can), huge administrative overhead, and absurdly slow adoption of electronic medical records systems. Read the report. No bogeymen there; just the hard fact that our health care system needs fixing.
ReplyDeleteYou mean you want me to actually read the report?! ;-o
ReplyDeleteOkay, it's a deal. I will download it forthwith.
Cory, I did not mean to suggest that we shouldn't attempt to solve the problem because there might be some glitches in any reasonable solution.
ReplyDeleteMy insurance premiums are paying for illegal immigrants' health care right now, and various middlepeople are getting a cut of that. It may well be worse now, in fact, than it would be if a national insurance program did cover illegal immigrants with tax dollars.
People in some U.S. places pay much higher premiums than we do here in Dakota, because many illegals come straight to their shores. Take Miami, for example. Premiums there are twice our rate. Nationalized health care would be a big relief for them.
I don't like supporting people who break our laws, but there may be no getting around it. We can't just let them die when they get sick, and we can't deport them all.
How about a new blog about how we should solve the immigration problem? Or did I miss a recent one?
Oh well, sometimes life just ain't fair.
I didn't say illegals were jumping to the head of the line. But they are driving up health care costs because when they show up at a hospital ER they are treated just like the paying patients, and the paying patients also pay for them, sometimes have to wait while the illegal nonpaying patient gets help first. And when the illegal "red herring" as you call it is factored into the millions that Obama and Hillary were claiming didn't have insurance, that in itself is the elephant in the room that people don't realize is there.
ReplyDeleteAnon, I'll spot you 12 million illegal aliens, sure. And you're right, some fraction of them get sick and visit the ER, and some fraction of them aren't able to pay, thus adding cost the rest of us absorb. Now, what about your 75 million under/uninsured fellow Americans? What about the 101,000 preventable deaths our system permits? Deport every illegal immigrant, and you'll still have to solve those problems. Suggestions?
ReplyDelete