Health care coverage has evolved around the world. Many
countries, including our neighbors to the North have socialized medicine. The United States is currently ranked 37th
in overall health care performance. We spend more on technology and treatment
than any other country and we still come up less healthy. We spend more than $6,000 per capita, which
is twice as much as any country. The strong connection between a nations'
health and its productivity are too strong to ignore.
The Clinton's tried and failed to bring about universal
health care during the 1990's. It is majorly weighing on the minds of the
people in America and continues to be a major issue in the race to the white
house. Major employers like GM for example, are reporting losses due to health
care expenses. How can small and big businesses compete when it costs more to
pay for health care than they are making? It's the same old story of corporate
greed and profit impacting the quality of life. The drug and health care
companies are responsible for the killing of the health care initiative of the
1990's.
Our health care system is essentially an after the fact set
up. Instead of putting a fence at the edge of the cliff to keep people from
falling off, we put a high tech ambulance at the bottom to treat you after the
fact. Our health care system is not based on prevention and education. It is
based on after the fact treatment that puts lots of money in the pockets of
those that are involved in the process. Public sentiment is strong, but it is
apparent that capitalism is a stronger force than democracy. Sixty percent of Americans that participated
in the annual Health Confidence Survey said their health insurance costs went
up.
Based on data from
the Center for Disease Control s' National Center for Health Statistics, more
than 19% of adults aged 18-64 years have no health insurance. The only good
news from the statistics is the decrease in the number of uninsured children. Around 8.5% of children under 18 years old
are uninsured. More than two thirds of the adult population is covered by
private health insurance while 18.8% of persons under 65 are covered by public
health plans.
We know people are sick and we know employers are going
bankrupt trying to fund the continually rising costs of health coverage as an
employee benefit. The majority of the discussion about health care is really
about reforming who pays for it and who gets coverage. The discussion is more
about managing a nation of diseased people. I have not heard anybody say they
want to start a campaign to end cancer or heart disease. Just as much as the
drug companies and hospitals make large profits treating us when we get sick,
the big food companies that also have strong connections in Washington are against
discussions about prevention and health itself, not just health care reform.
If you are one of the nearly 50 million uninsured Americans,
then you know how you are treated differently by the health care system than
those that have insurance. When you go into an urgent care facility or
emergency room for treatment as an uninsured patient you are called self-pay.
There is another side to being uninsured that has not been discussed yet. The
quality of the treatment is seriously lower when you are self-pay. I recently
ended up in such a situation after I gracefully broke my hand and wrist diving
for a fly ball in a baseball practice. Because I have no insurance, I
practiced a common form of denial that involved simply ignoring the throbbing
pains coming from my shattered bones and convinced myself that not being able
to move my wrist up or down was just a bad sprain that would get better.
I
finally caved in and dragged myself down to the friendly neighborhood urgent
care. They took x-rays and found out that my wrist was definitely broken. Because
I was self-pay, they decided that a Velcro brace and some good pain medicine
would cure the break. If I were insured, they would have done more tests and
ultimately, put me in a cast. I ran into a friend a couple of weeks later that
happens to be an orthopedic doctor. He
indicated that a Velcro brace would not immobilize the serious break I had that
takes an average of three months to heal. I went to his office and had a new set
of x-rays taken, paid a huge office visit charge, and ended up leaving with a
cast and the information that my hand was also broken, not just my wrist. If I
had health insurance I would have gone to the specialist in the first place.
Even with the lower quality of care at the urgent care, I was still treated
differently and it resulted in additional out of pocket expenses.
The bottom line is that we will not create more healthy
people by reforming the health care system. Our schools enforce disastrous
nutritional practices that help put profits into the pockets of the food
processors, sugar companies, oil refineries, and other big companies that
profit by promoting unhealthy food choices. The top ten drug companies made
more money than the other 490 companies on the Fortune 500 list. We are a country
of unhealthy people with the highest rates of heart disease, cancer, obesity,
and diabetes in the world. If we spent the same amount of money on prevention
as we do on after the fact care, then we could be a more prosperous and
economically competitive nation. It is very important to realize the difference
between discussions about health care reform and health.
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