The assault on healthcare reform has begun. For the next three years, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs and other halthcare profiteers will spend billions in advertising and more billions in lobbying to convince us that we have the BEST healthcare system in the world and that reform will ruin our system. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have claimed a reputation for quality healthcare by deceit. We are not the best in the world; we are 37th on the list behind most EU countries with government-run simgle-payer universal healthcare.
Single-payer government-managed healthcare is the only way to bring costs down. I have worked in several hospitals and clinics while in college and shortly after, so I am not speaking in ignorance.
The real problem is that insurance companies must make a profit, and to do so, they must up the premiums and deny as many claims as possible. When care is denied, it results in loss of life or loss of quality of life. Further, most insurance companies do not pay claims for preventive healthcare. They wait until the problem becomes chronic or acute, when it is too late and when the costs for healthcare go up astronomically.
The old standby fear-mongering that “a government bureaucrat will decide your healthcare” can easily be countered with the fact that WE ALREADY HAVE BUREAUCRATS DECIDING OUR HEALTHCARE — INSURANCE COMPANY BUREAUCRATS — and they do not have our best interests at heart, but rather the health of the company.
If the government provides the same healthcare as all Federal employees have available to them, that is an improvement, but not the best we can do. A better solution is for the government to put us all on the same basic coverage as Medicaid, but Federally run rather than State run. The premiums for those not indigent would be lower and the defaults for emergency care of indigent would be significantly less. It would profit us in the long run by having a healthier populace but, more important to business, a healthier workforce and less overhead to figure in the cost of labor for Big Business.
This would make us far more competitive with foreign labor (with the exception of the third world countries who treat their workers and citizens as expendable resources). Real reform in healthcare will only be possible with some government control over cost. I do not believe the value of a person’s life or quality of life should be sacrificed to the bottom line.
Arius (from another blog) said:
France, Germany, and Great Britain all have nationalized health care – and they ALL spend less per capita than we do. Stick THAT in your stethoscope and listen to it.
There is a theory that competition will bring prices down. So far it has not. There is more price-fixing among medical practices, pharmaceutical companies and HMOs than there is real competition that benefits the consumer. Competition does not guarantee a low price. Examples of how government cost regulation kept prices low is when they controlled milk prices when I was young. When the regulation ended, prices went up astronomically. And then there is the breakup of Ma Belle that was promised to lower our phone bills and improve our service than’s to competition. Well, our phone bills went up immediately after the break-up and the service went down, and this has been going on for a while now. Even the introduction of the mobile phone did not improve long-distance prices for land-line service, which is why most folks use a mobile phone for long distance calls, and many (especially the young) only have a mobile phone.
Arius is right. The superiority of our healthcare is a myth. Here is a good list of resources regarding world health statistics: http://search.who.int/search?ie=utf8&si … itesearch=
The following table shows where the US ranks in comparison to other countries in terms of healthcare systems and their efficiency (infant mortality, etc.). The US in 37, behind virtually every EU country and Canada.
So, don’t pretend that we are so superior to everyone else. We are not. For the U.S. to be 37th in the world is shameful given the resources that we have.
Table 1. Overall efficiency in all WHO member states
[Country names shortened by blogger]
1 France 96 Fiji 2 Italy 97 Benin 3 San Marino 98 Nauru 4 Andorra 99 Romania 5 Malta 100 St. Kitts & Nevis 6 Singapore 101 Moldova 7 Spain 102 Bulgaria 8 Oman 103 Iraq 9 Austria 104 Armenia 10 Japan 105 Latvia 11 Norway 106 Yugoslavia 12 Portugal 107 Cook Islands 13 Monaco 108 Syria 14 Greece 109 Azerbaijan 15 Iceland 110 Suriname 16 Luxembourg 111 Ecuador 17 Netherlands 112 India 18 U.K. 113 Cape Verde 19 Ireland 114 Georgia 20 Switzerland 115 El Salvador 21 Belgium 116 Tonga 22 Colombia 117 Uzbekistan 23 Sweden 118 Comoros 24 Cyprus 119 Samoa 25 Germany 120 Yemen 26 Saudi Arabia 121 Niue 27 U.A.E. 122 Pakistan 28 Israel 123 Micronesia 29 Morocco 124 Bhutan 30 Canada 125 Brazil 31 Finland 126 Bolivia 32 Australia 127 Vanuatu 33 Chile 128 Guyana 34 Denmark 129 Peru 35 Dominica 130 Russia 36 Costa Rica 131 Honduras 37 U.S.A. 132 Burkina Faso 38 Slovenia 133 Sao Tome & Principe 39 Cuba 134 Sudan 40 Brunei Darussalam 135 Ghana 41 New Zealand 136 Tuvalu 42 Bahrain 137 Côte d’Ivoire 43 Croatia 138 Haiti 44 Qatar 139 Gabon 45 Kuwait 140 Kenya 46 Barbados 141 Marshall Islands 47 Thailand 142 Kiribati 48 Czech Republic 143 Burundi 49 Malaysia 144 China 50 Poland 145 Mongolia 51 Dominican Republic 146 Gambia 52 Tunisia 147 Maldives 53 Jamaica 148 Papua New Guinea 54 Venezuela 149 Uganda 55 Albania 150 Nepal 56 Seychelles 151 Kyrgyzstan 57 Paraguay 152 Togo 58 South Korea 153 Turkmenistan 59 Senegal 154 Tajikistan 60 Philippines 155 Zimbabwe 61 Mexico 156 Tanzania 62 Slovakia 157 Djibouti 63 Egypt 158 Eritrea 64 Kazakhstan 159 Madagascar 65 Uruguay 160 Viet Nam 66 Hungary 161 Guinea 67 Trinidad & Tobago 162 Mauritania 68 St. Lucia 163 Mali 69 Belize 164 Cameroon 70 Turkey 165 Laos 71 Nicaragua 166 Congo 72 Belarus 167 North Korea 73 Lithuania 168 Namibia 74 St. Vincent & the Grenadines 169 Botswana 75 Argentina 170 Niger 76 Sri Lanka 171 Equatorial Guinea 77 Estonia 172 Rwanda 78 Guatemala 173 Afghanistan 79 Ukraine 174 Cambodia 80 Solomon Islands 175 South Africa 81 Algeria 176 Guinea-Bissau 82 Palau 177 Swaziland 83 Jordan 178 Chad 84 Mauritius 179 Somalia 85 Grenada 180 Ethiopia 86 Antigua & Barbuda 181 Angola 87 Libya 182 Zambia 88 Bangladesh 183 Lesotho 89 Macedonia 184 Mozambique 90 Bosnia & Herzegovina 185 Malawi 91 Lebanon 186 Liberia 92 Indonesia 187 Nigeria 93 Iran 188 Congo 94 Bahamas 189 Central African Republic 95 Panama 190 Myanmar 191 Sierra Leone
I agree we should be in the top ten if not number one in the world when it comes to health care. I am ashamed of our health care system it has been compromised by profit instead of caring for people. 37th really is shameful.
You are comparing “quality heathcare” with the WHO study which is misleading. The WHO includes many factors other than quality including Distribution, financial fairness, and responsiveness (which includes quality of linens).
Americans have a higher survival rate than any other country on earth for 13 of 16 of the most common cancers. With that said, we certainly need reform.
Let’s focus on the areas which need reform (tort reform, better regulation of insurance, billing and other admin efficiencies, fraud, preventative care, accountability for those who smoke etc.). A single payer system will not provide the incentive for innovation.
Innovation will not be hampered by a single payer system. Biomedical companies will still have ample incentive to bring new innovative products into the market. It’s doesn’t matter who is paying our nation’s health care, companies will still be rewarded by bringing more effective and efficiency-producing products to the market. Furthermore, biomedical companies are global in nature and are able to sell their new devices all over the world. The small difference in who’s paying for health care in the US will make no difference to a biomedical company.
As for medical facilities, they will still have the incentive to perform well and achieve high results on such independent critiques such as the JCAHO health facility survey, as long as patients continue to have the freedom to choose their facility for care.
I agree with you that a single-payer, government-managed system will not hamper innovation. What it will hamper is exploitation of American patients.
A profit-motivated company will have no incentive to improve quality if what they are doing now sells, unless there is a way for American patients to “collectively bargain” for better prices and better quality, and that is what a single-payer, government-managed (meaning cost-effective, but not-for-profit) system provides.
Right now (and this was true 10 years ago and before that), patients in countries all over the world are paying considerably less for medications than what Americans pay for their “co-pay” when filling prescriptions. The retail price for many drugs in Manila, Philippines, were lower than my insurance co-pays. Justification? Americans can afford to pay more (at least the wealthy and insured can), the others who can’t afford it don’t count.Insurance bureaucrats are acting as “death panels” who decide whether or not your life is worth saving. If the treatment you need is not profitable, you don’t get it.
The one thing Obamacare did accomplish was to eliminate pre-existing illness denial of coverage. But the Republicans are trying desperately to repeal or defund or otherwise kill Obamacare before it has a chance to be fully implemented. We are the only ones who can stop this.
We are 100% in agreement. I worked in the health care industry for a number of years, but I do not have an insider’s bias because as a patient I have had too many negative experiences with USA health care. I’m so disgusted with our health care system; I chose to self pay and go to Mexico for a procedure because my insurance company gave me the run-around for more than a year and a half. It shocks some people that I would go to Mexico, but Mexico isn’t much further down the WHO list than the USA, and the hospitals near the border that cater to medical tourism are outstanding. Four surgeries in the last 10 years, and by far the best experience I had was in Mexico. I compared many things, but the best thing of all was that the hospital in Mexico treated me like a valued customer. The hospitals in the USA did not… because I was NOT the customer, the tightwad insurance company was paying the bills. You are correct that the insurance companies are obviously about profit, but yet for some reason too shortsighted to pay for preventive procedures that would keep them from paying much more later. My guess is that they have some business model that says a certain number of people who are denied preventive procedures will just die and therefore go away; I don’t know. I could go on and on, but I wont.
You are exactly right. I worked on both the plaintiff and defense side in law as a legal assistant, and I can tell you that insurance companies have calculated by industry and specifically by type of suit just how much your life is worth. They have statistics that tell them what the percentage of survivorship is for any specific injury or illness, and how many of those actually follow through with complaints al the way to a verdict. So, the bottom line is, your life’s “value” in their eyes is based on how much it would cost to put on a successful defense as opposed to how much it would cost to provide the needed treatment. And they can always ‘wait you out” until you either give up and stop appealing their decision or die, whichever comes first.
Most Americans just don’t want to believe that executive boards would make those kind of policies, but in a “for profit” business, they are required b y law to maximize profits. There is no qualifier that says they should maximize profits only to the point where it is socially responsible, so that means if maximizing profits means they destroy liv es or the environment or whatever, that’s just too bad. And their policies will only change when either the law changes and the penalties for breaking the law are greater than the difference in profit.
“For profit” should not be a big mystery. It means that insurance companies and non-government agencies that are for profit are doing just that: they are charging patients the cost of services PLUS whatever the market will bear in order to make the maximum profit. Many Americans have bought the Big Business propaganda and are convinced that government is the problem, but government is a non-profit enterprise, and anything the government does can be done for less than what a for-profit enterprise will do, by definition.
Big Business has privatized so many governmental functions and passed on the cost of their profits to Americans. Our prison system has become an institution where not only are American taxpayers paying for the privilege of having their prisoners housed by private FOR-PROFIT companies, but the prison labor also provides these companies with forced labor opportunities that drive down the cost of labor in the free market. Everything from agriculture to manufacturing to crafts is now a part of the endless pool of virtually free labor. “Virtually free” is the term I use, because even thought the law states that prisoners must be paid market price for their labor, by the time the prisons charge them for the cost of living and security in prisons, there is very little of their paycheck left when they get it. So, American taxpayers pay the company, forced prison labor pays the company, and the company makes profits on the goods made by prisoners — a profit trifecta, if you will. The company wins, places and shows profit on every level, while prisoners are exploited for their labor and given longer mandatory sentences to make sure the prisons stay profitable and the labor pool is sufficient — all while American taxpayers are footing the bill, and not for less than what it would cost them to operate the prisons directly.
And now since the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the U.S.) has decided in Citizens United that corporations should have equal rights to live human beings, the chance that we might be able to control government corruption is dwindling fast. Until we enact campaign finance reform, we will have problems getting politicians to “Just say no” to greedy Wall Street bankers and Big Business who only havwe eyes for profit when they propagandize about how government can’t do anything better or more cheaply than private enterprise. It’s not true, but Big Business has the bucks (more and higher profit margins than ever) to invest in “K” Street lawyers to supply cash to politicians for access and advertising to convince voters that their own logic doesn’t make sense.
What is the date of this report? I don’t understand why, when such information is time sensitive, this report does not have an easily identifiable publication date.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/06/23/us-usa-healthcare-last-idUSTRE65M0SU20100623:
U.S. scores dead last again in healthcare study
by Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor, dated Wednesday, Jun 23, 2010 4:48pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries — Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.
USA must be in the top 5 country in the world at health care system, buy our leaders are interested in wars not medical situation. Phenomenal post! Insightful and entertaining as always!
Laura…Good article/blog (blarticle) and both comments have merit. Although having a higher survival rate is good it does NOT excite me more than preventing cancers and most other diseases in the first place. Our “healthcare” system is really “sickcare” as they still promote early detection as prevention. Many women fall prey to the scare tactics and pressure into their yearly mammograms which many doctors and scientists say those mammograms are contributing and causing MORE breast cancers. There are better and safer ways to detect(MRI’s, Thermography) and again PREVENT. Dr. C. M. Gonzalez http://www.HangingOutForTheHealthOfit.com
Let me point out
I have to agree with many of your statements. The capitalization of health care is great for the providers but not the users.
1. Canada’s Health system is ranked 30th in the world, seldom is France or Italy mentioned.
2. Most all services are provided in Canada by private service, or entities, most doctors work for themselves, in a fee per visit basis. The system is funded by the public; this is the half-truth. It is has public and half private already.
If they were to pay doctors an annual fee per patient, ie salary, the ‘business of disease’ would end.
Hospitals ?
1. Inefficient ?
Hospitals, appear to bill the system for services. They have alot, however not efficiently used.
The problem with the entire current system is that it is revenue based, and the sicker you get the more money ‘they make’….(it is not true public, nor non-profit health care.
You have to look at the reality of the situation, and not what they claim.
For example I went to the emergency, 5 times a few weeks ago, with a nose bleed. I had gone once in December.
Only after I persisted in asking why the bleed did not stop did I get the answer that Advil, I used once in December, and January was responsible for shutting down my bloods coagulation process.
Had they found that in December I would not have taken it is January. Five additional admissions in January and 5 pints of blood, while waiting in the emergency, all the time the ‘specialist’ was never called.
Canada’s Health system, is a ‘free’ merry go round system…it has its merits, and its problems…mostly systemic.
I would prefer my doctor makes more money when i am cured, or healthy, under the current system, its visit, question, visit, question, test, visit, question, test, visit, question, test, visit, treatment, visit, treatment, visit, treatment…in some cases it gets it right the first time, but it is based on disease.
The half-truth is Canada’s health system is always compared to that of the USA, and not to France and Italy.
http://lauraschneider.wordpress.com/2009/06/20/where-does-america-rank-in-healthcare-quality-and-efficiency/
WE DO NOT HAVE THE BEST SYSTEM IN THE WORLD; THAT IS AN OUT AND OUT LIE.
A true socialized health care system, usually results in better preventative care, better cures, less cost, and more money to spend on capitalistic products like GMC, Ford, Apple, Microsoft products.
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are you a jew or Muslim-hater or something? seriously, all that Muslim, Palestine-Israel talk was retarded. i am not a Muslim and it’s obvious that all that trash you wrote was both one-sided and unlogical. i have read the quran and all it say about jihad is to protect Islam. on the contrary, it spreads and promotes all types of good. i have even thought about converting! also, everyone, even the Zionists know that it is then who are brutally murdering dozens of Palestineans daily! so yeah, get your facts right!
You responded to an article about healthcare. Which of my blog pieces are you responding to?
I am not a Jew or Muslim-hater, but I recognize and understand how religious works can be perverted and exploited to justify a politcal agenda or even a tarrorist plot. It is the perversion of religion to these ends that I am against.
And it is fruitless to try to negotiate with terrorist-based organizations with the idea that peace can be achieved. In this case, the Muslim agenda is the eradication of Israel and achieving the world caliphate. There is no room for peace in that agenda.And, for that reason, Israel has no peace partner and a peace agreement is virtually impossible to chieve so long as Hamas is elected and supported by the Palestinian people. It is their choice.