U.S. health care sucks

Health care in the United States is in sad shape.  We spend more per capita than other industrialized nations and the value, in return, is lousy as measured by objective metrics such as life expectancy and infant mortality. 

The Center for American Progress has just published a new report on U.S. health care costs since 1994, when the Clinton Administration unsuccessfully attempted to introduce health care reform.  Some of the metrics:

  -  Per-person health care expenditures in the United States have risen 6.5 percent per year since 2000, and 5.5 percent per year on average since 1994.  In contrast, consumer inflation has averaged just 2.6 percent per year.

  -  Health care costs burden American employers, who are forced to cut back on providing coverage and benefits or suffer a competitive disadvantage against international companies who don’t bear health costs.

  -  Premiums for employer-provided health care have doubled since 2000 (the earliest year the Medical Expenditures Panel Survey has on record). That year the average family premium was $6,800. By 2008, it had risen to $12,700.  This premium growth eats away at wages and pressures firms to reduce coverage.

  -  The United States spent approximately 16 percent of its 2006 gross domestic product on health care, up from 8 percent in 1975.

  -  A recent McKinsey study found that the United States spent $650 billion more on health care than peer OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries even after adjusting for wealth.

  -  Despite enormous per-person health expenditures, the United States ranks 26th in the world in infant mortality, behind the Slovak Republic and just ahead of Poland.

  -  In 2004 (the most recent data available), the United States ranked 23rd in the world in life expectancy, and it has been falling
relative to the OECD average since 1994.

It's pretty stunning that a system so broken could continue as it has, largely unchecked and without a real consensus to change it.  One of the issues, of course, is the cost to fix the system, but a recent Commonwealth Fund study suggests that cost is not as great as previously thought:

(Commonwealth Fund member Sara) Collins said the type of plan Obama and Baucus have proposed would increase national expenditures by $17.8 billion in the first year.

"That is just 1 percent of the $2.2 trillion we spend (on health care) overall as a country," she said.

Her spending estimates are based on a cost analysis by the Lewin Group of a plan called Building Blocks proposed by The Commonwealth Fund that mirrors most elements of the Obama and Baucus plans. (Link)

The cost of having nearly 50M uninsured Americans is staggeringly high.  The reason the cost to implement a plan that would insure all Americans is relatively small comes from the efficiencies gained by newly insuring nearly 20% of the total population.

Comments

[beeseejd]

"Health Care" in this country is a misnomer.

"Disease Care" is more like it; that's where the emphasis is placed in our world.

And who can blame the doctors? When all their patients, and even in some cases the doctor, are obese or getting there? It may be high fructose corn syrup in everything, it might be couch potato-ing. . . Nothing is changing here! People are not conscious, they are numbed by sugar.

Aaach. So what?

[Jupirena Stein]

Health care for some sucks.
For some is the end of their health and at times, -THEIR LIVES!.

Please, have a moment and learn how Kaiser Permanente delivered their HEALTHCAREless.
www.kaiserpapers.org

THIS DOCTOR IS A CRIMINAL
HIS NAME IS DR. TIMOTHY WILFRED WILD. HE IS CHIEF HEAD & NECK SURGERY
AT KAISER PERMANENTE,VACAVILLE, CA.
THIS INTENTIONAL CRIME WAS COMMITTED UNDER KAISER PERMANENTE'S GME PROGRAM - GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION.

HIS CRIME IS SO VIOLENT AND HORRIFIC;IT DEFIES BELIEF.
PLEASE, SEE FOR YOURSELF:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMXN1wUaQnU

"EVIL PREVAILS WHEN THE GOOD PEOPLE ARE SILENT OR TAKE NO ACTION."

[Jay McDonough]

I'm sorry. Please take care. Jay