Progressive Democrat Issue 54: THOUGHTS
Health insurance. Joy and I were discussing health insurance after hearing a NewYork 1 report that uninsured people were more likely to be turned away from an emergency room and sent to a clinic than insured people. Now, hospitals who DO turn away patients based on insurance rather than severity of the injury are liable to law suits, but we all know that the chances of a law suit changing things are small since those who don’t have insurance are unlikely to have much legal counsel.
What is wrong with our insurance system? Too many people are uninsured and because of that do not have adequate health care available to them. But, that is only one part of the problem. What about those who ARE insured? There are long waiting times to get an appointment. Often you don’t get to choose your physician. You often don’t have a primary care physician who follows you through the years and knows you. Care is determined based on a business model where profit (or at least minimal cost) takes precedence over what the physician and patient want or the injury requires.
Physicians are limited to some degree in what they can do and what tests and medications they can order because of oversight by insurance companies and hospital management teams. Now our health care system has its strong points. But there is no doubt that there are major problems with availability of care, fairness of care, cost, etc.
Okay. Now what I want to know is what about the situation we have, which is based on a capitalist business model, is different from what people in America feared would happen under socialized medicine? We were told we needed a business model for our health care system in order to AVOID these problems. Somehow, the business model for health care have given us the SAME problems it was supposed to avoid AND has given us sharp class divisions in availability of healthcare. So…we have the worst of both, it seems.
The US has chosen the “business model” for its health care system. Scandinavia, Canada, UK have chosen a more socialized system. The main disadvantage of socialized health care is higher taxes. You pay for a socialized system in taxes. Americans hate the idea of higher taxes, but let’s look at outcome. How does our nation compare with nations in health? Let’s look at some statistics. I am playing around at this site.
How about healthy life expectancy (the age at which someone can expect to remain healthy, on average)? The US ranks 29th for healthy life expectancy. Now many things affect this—diet, genetics, poverty, health care… But it is one measure of how well a nation is doing in health care overall. We rank 29th. That is just between Slovenia and Portugal. Keep in mind, America is a far wealthier nation than EITHER Slovenia or Portugal, yet our healthy life expectancy is only 69.3 years. Slovenia beats us slightly with 69.5. UK, with a more socialized system, ranks 24th. Netherlands with a more socialized system ranks 18th. Canada, the system Republicans most like to denigrate when nationalized health care is suggested, ranks 11th. Sweden, which is almost synonymous with socialized health care, ranks 3rd with 73.3 years. We are beaten by nations with much lower levels of wealth (like Slovenia and Italy and Greece). I think our business model does not measure up when we look at healthy life expectancy.
How about maternal mortality (women who die in childbirth)? We’re not so bad with 8 deaths per 100,000 births. But the socialized medicine nations do as well or better. Netherlands and UK, both well known for having more nationalized healthcare than us, are at 7 per 100,000 births. Sweden again beats us, with 5 deaths per 100,000 births. Once again, it seems the business model does not beat the nationalized model.
How about this measure: the probability of not reaching 60 years old? In the US there is a 12.8% chance of not reaching 60 years old. That is slightly better than Portugal and slightly worse than Albania. Again, we are far wealthier than Portugal or Albania, but that is where we rank. In socialist Sweden, a person has only an 8% chance of not reaching 60 years of age. Canada, the UK and the Netherlands all rank better than us on this measure as well.
I can go on. There are dozens of ways of measuring national health. There are also many things that contribute to national health. But one thing is clear. The money spent in taxes to pay for a more nationalized system in places like Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands and Canada seems to pay off in terms of lower mortality, higher life expectancy and better health. Our business model is certainly performing no better and it involves a larger discrepancy in care depending on race and class.
If our current business model method of health care is not performing better than socialized medicine, and it is screwing over a large percentage of our population—the poor and minorities—then why are we so addicted to it? Why do we persist in a failed system?
What is wrong with our insurance system? Too many people are uninsured and because of that do not have adequate health care available to them. But, that is only one part of the problem. What about those who ARE insured? There are long waiting times to get an appointment. Often you don’t get to choose your physician. You often don’t have a primary care physician who follows you through the years and knows you. Care is determined based on a business model where profit (or at least minimal cost) takes precedence over what the physician and patient want or the injury requires.
Physicians are limited to some degree in what they can do and what tests and medications they can order because of oversight by insurance companies and hospital management teams. Now our health care system has its strong points. But there is no doubt that there are major problems with availability of care, fairness of care, cost, etc.
Okay. Now what I want to know is what about the situation we have, which is based on a capitalist business model, is different from what people in America feared would happen under socialized medicine? We were told we needed a business model for our health care system in order to AVOID these problems. Somehow, the business model for health care have given us the SAME problems it was supposed to avoid AND has given us sharp class divisions in availability of healthcare. So…we have the worst of both, it seems.
The US has chosen the “business model” for its health care system. Scandinavia, Canada, UK have chosen a more socialized system. The main disadvantage of socialized health care is higher taxes. You pay for a socialized system in taxes. Americans hate the idea of higher taxes, but let’s look at outcome. How does our nation compare with nations in health? Let’s look at some statistics. I am playing around at this site.
How about healthy life expectancy (the age at which someone can expect to remain healthy, on average)? The US ranks 29th for healthy life expectancy. Now many things affect this—diet, genetics, poverty, health care… But it is one measure of how well a nation is doing in health care overall. We rank 29th. That is just between Slovenia and Portugal. Keep in mind, America is a far wealthier nation than EITHER Slovenia or Portugal, yet our healthy life expectancy is only 69.3 years. Slovenia beats us slightly with 69.5. UK, with a more socialized system, ranks 24th. Netherlands with a more socialized system ranks 18th. Canada, the system Republicans most like to denigrate when nationalized health care is suggested, ranks 11th. Sweden, which is almost synonymous with socialized health care, ranks 3rd with 73.3 years. We are beaten by nations with much lower levels of wealth (like Slovenia and Italy and Greece). I think our business model does not measure up when we look at healthy life expectancy.
How about maternal mortality (women who die in childbirth)? We’re not so bad with 8 deaths per 100,000 births. But the socialized medicine nations do as well or better. Netherlands and UK, both well known for having more nationalized healthcare than us, are at 7 per 100,000 births. Sweden again beats us, with 5 deaths per 100,000 births. Once again, it seems the business model does not beat the nationalized model.
How about this measure: the probability of not reaching 60 years old? In the US there is a 12.8% chance of not reaching 60 years old. That is slightly better than Portugal and slightly worse than Albania. Again, we are far wealthier than Portugal or Albania, but that is where we rank. In socialist Sweden, a person has only an 8% chance of not reaching 60 years of age. Canada, the UK and the Netherlands all rank better than us on this measure as well.
I can go on. There are dozens of ways of measuring national health. There are also many things that contribute to national health. But one thing is clear. The money spent in taxes to pay for a more nationalized system in places like Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands and Canada seems to pay off in terms of lower mortality, higher life expectancy and better health. Our business model is certainly performing no better and it involves a larger discrepancy in care depending on race and class.
If our current business model method of health care is not performing better than socialized medicine, and it is screwing over a large percentage of our population—the poor and minorities—then why are we so addicted to it? Why do we persist in a failed system?
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