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Since I work from home, often have time on my hands between projects, and actually enjoy writing, I write term papers for people who need help (and can pay ; )
Last month, I wrote a U.S. healthcare research paper for this guy, and I learned a lot about how fuked up the system is.
Anyone with a sense of the issue probably knows some of the important figures, and a few of them have been mentioned already, namely:
The U.S. spends more than anyone else on healthcare - more than 2x as much per person on health care than any other developed country;
1/3 of Americans are uninsured or underinsured;
U.S. ranks near the bottom among developed countries on key indicators like life expectancy and infant mortality;
in 2000, WHO ranked U.S. healthcare system #37 (!!) worlwide;
Employment trends (service industry/part-time, etc.) point toward even higher #'s of un/underinsured in near future;
Un/underinsured rely way too much on emergency room visits, which are on the order of 5x more expensive, and terribly inefficient;
U.S. healthcare costs are spiralling out of control - double-digit annual inflation and no relief in sight;
Lack of access to healthcare largely corresponds with income and ethnicity, and studies show that there is a vicious cycle of poor health and lower income;
Administrative costs - including invoicing, service approvals, marketing, broker's fees to insurance agents, etc. - are estimated to be as much as 30% of all healthcare costs in the U.S. (vs. 3%-5% in UK);
U.S. companies claim that they are disadvantaged in the global market because of health care costs (would like to research this more). At any rate, small and medium-size businesses are at disadvantage because they don't have the leverage;
Also, don't forget:
too many specialists, overuse of technology, preference for treatment over prevention, fraud, malpractice and all of the 'defensive medicine procedures' it necessitates, etc, etc, etc.
That's just the lowlights, abbreviated so as not to overtax your attention.
I won't even start in on why universal health care, or something approaching it, would be better.
I'll just say that I think that research and an open mind would lead most reasonable people to the conclusion that health should not be treated like any other commodity, and that the health care market does not behave like other markets. I think reasonable people would see that the advantages of fundamental reform are huge.
If absolutely nothing else, there's the 'pocketbook perspective' - it's just not too hard for people to see that more and more of their taxes and more of their wages (when the costs of health care are figured as part of overall compensation) are going to keep getting piped into a system that just doesn't work very well.
Yet, anytime somebody proposes fundamental reforms, the parties interested in the status quo (like the AMA, Insurance Groups, and Big Pharma - 3 vastly powerful lobbying machines) cry "Socialized Medicine!" They chant "USA! Free Market!" and dredge up all kinds of horror stories about Canadians waiting 9 months for an MRI, and other bullsh*t that scares everybody into thinking there's nothing to be done, except maybe tinker around the edges of the existing system. But that just makes things more complicated, more expensive, and as it feeds the beast that professionalized medicine and professional "care" has become in the U.S., more hopeless.
That's my .02
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America needs to take care of its senior citizens better.
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Originally Posted by badandy519
