Why Our Current Healthcare System Sucks

Okay Matt..you have forced me to respond. First of all if your doctor tells you that you have a cold and offers you antibiotics, don’t take them. A cold is caused by a virus and antibiotics won’t do a thing for you. It’s the overuse and misuse of antibiotics that has produced these “super bugs” like MRSA that have become resistant to the usual antibiotic treatments. The 5th leading cause of death in our country is hospital-acquired infections..many of them caused by these multi-drug resistant bacteria that are very difficult to treat!!

Books can be and have been written about why our health-care system is in a crisis, I’m going to attempt to list just some of the issues that I know about and understand. I’m not guaranteeing that all of these statements are 100 % correct, yes I found most of them on the Internet, but I did try to do my research and I can provide references and resources if you need them.

Costs are out of control:
*Health care spending is 4.3 times the amount spent on national defense.
*Although nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured (including 8.7 million children ) the US spends more on health care than other industrialized nations, and those countries provide health insurance to all their citizens.
*Premium costs are rising 3 times faster than wages or inflation.
*Every 30 seconds someone files for “medical bankruptcy”. ¾ of those filings are people with health insurance.
*As costs increase, employers that offer health coverage are finding it harder to compete with companies in countries that have universal coverage and employers in America that don’t offer benefits. Health insurance expenses are the fastest growing cost component for employers.
*National surveys show that the primary reason people are uninsured is the high cost of health insurance coverage.

But Insurance and Drug companies are profiting:
*Profits for drug companies are almost 20% compared with 6.3 % for all Fortune 500 Companies.
*Health insurance company profits have increased 1,084 % in five years.
*There are 4 times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members of Congress.

Our System is wasteful and inefficient.
*Administrative costs account for 31 % of our health care expenditures, the average overheard for U.S private health insurers is 11.7 percent, compared to less than 3 % for public plans like Medicare.
*Most of our current system of storing and recording healthcare data is out of date and results in medical errors that cause thousands of deaths and injuries to patients every year. In his 2005 State of the Union address President Bush included “a call for improved information technology to prevent medical error and needless costs”. Since the VA implemented a bar-coding system they have seen a drastic reduction in medication errors. The system needs to be implemented in all U.S. hospitals.
*Providing preventative and primary care to everyone is less expensive than treating illnesses that result from not having those services.

With our Current System of Profit Over People are we healthier???
* The infant mortality rate for the U.S. is now higher than for many other industrialized countries. For example infant mortality rate for Detroit is 15.5 compared to El Salvador’s rate of 9.7 (shameful, isn’t it?)
*Canadians live 3 years longer on average than we do.
* Study in the Journal of the AMA found that older Americans are significantly less healthy than their British counterparts-we have more diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, lung disease and cancer. The study found that people in the top income and education level in our country have similar rates of heart disease and diabetes as the poorest and least educated Brit.
*18,000 people die each year because they are uninsured.
*The CDC reports that chronic conditions account for 75% of healthcare expenditures and that many of these conditions could be prevented and managed with primary care and intervention.
*When uninsured and underinsured people in our country cannot get the medical care they need, particularly primary care, they get very sick or die from manifestations of chronic conditions, complications, or untreated acute disease. Much of the costs of their treatment is at our expense….Note to Matt: There is no such thing as FREE care, someone always pays….WE pay.

Okay, so I’m going to get off of my soap box now. If any one still wants to debate me about why our healthcare system needs fixing, don’t bother..I’ve made my points. Just one last fact to add:
90 % of Americans believe the American health care system needs fundamental changes or needs to be totally rebuilt and 2/3 of Americans believe the federal government should guarantee universal health care for all citizens.