kozuh .. United States health care system ranks 37th in world and it trickles down to Brockport Friday, April 1, 2011
"In the time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." .. George Orwell
As I mentioned in an earlier post I have been reading Martha Nussbaum's book, "Creating Capabilities: The Human Development Approach", in which she argues that there are 10 core capabilities that a society (Country) must provide for if the country's citizens are to be healthy and happy. She argues that GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is an inadequate indicator for a whole number of reasons. The first capability was "Life" which I described in an earlier article. .. http://healthpolicyandreform.nejm.org/?p=2610 .. The second capability is "Bodily health" which she defines as "Being able to have good health, including reproductive health; to be adequately nourished; to have adequate shelter."
How does the United States performance measure as compared to other countries of the world?
As we saw in the earlier article, the United States performance on Life expectancy is 50th in the world at a little over 78 years of age.
According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine on January 6, 2010, the United States ranks 37th in the world on the performance of its health care system in spite of what the Republican Speaker of the House, John Boehner, says when he claims, falsely, that the United States has the best health care system in the world. Boehner is wrong on just about any indicator one would want to measure. He lies directly to the American people in his spin to push his Republican agenda.
It is important for Americans to know the truth. The United States performs very poorly in delivering health care which leads to the poor showing in life expectancy.
How is health care in the Brockport area?
Many people have no health insurance and go without health care that they need. In my psychotherapy office and in my personal life, I am confronted daily with problems that Brockporters have with an inefficient, ineffective health care system. The pharmaceutical companies and HMOs are driving health care delivery, and it has been turned into a business instead of a human service to which people should be entitled in the richest country on earth.
What is the etiology of our poor health care performance? Greed in the corporate offices, and the corruption in Washington and Albany. Health care is no longer patient centered but payor centered. How often have you been told that this test can't be done, or this medication can't be provided because of health insurance rules? Your health care provider and you are no longer in control over your treatment plan; it is the health insurance companies who are dictating to the providers what they can and can't do on your behalf.
Citizens and providers have been sheep to the slaughter as the marketers have commercialized and taken over health care previously one of the most intimate and private of the professions which has now been turned into a profit making enterprise. It doesn't have to be that way, and it isn't in other countries. Here in the U.S. business interests have taken over and bought the politicians to turn our health care system to one of the worst in the first world, and the data is there to prove it.
Just to be clear, if you have money, you will get the best care in the world in the United States because we have the expertise and the equipment, but for the majority of Americans their health care is no better than that in third world countries, nonexistent or primitive.
I know many Brockporters who suffer needlessly because they can't afford health care even with insurance because they have high deductibles and co-pays. We can do much better, and when compared to the rest of the world we have a long way to go.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday pulled the rug out from under drugmaker K-V Pharmaceutical – the company that infuriated Congress and consumers alike when it said it would charge $1,500 for a drug that had been previously available for $20. http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=61547112
Universal health care is a term referring to organized health-care systems built around the principle of universal coverage for all members of society, combining mechanisms for health financing and service provision http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_health_care#Australia
kozuh .. you saying you were a raging or blazing, i forget .. liberal person in college .. just can't figure how you drifted so far right .. has usually been, but right today is even more clearly wrong.
ps: am listening to a program now that is saying the people are beating the mafia in Sicily .. one gutsy tv reporter says a top mob guy, in hiding, even listens to and says he enjoys his tv show ..
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