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Does the U.S. Have the World's Best Health Care System? Yes, If You're Talking About the Third World
A little more than a year ago, on the day after the GOP regained control of the House of Representatives, Speaker-to-be John Boehner said one of the first orders of business after he took charge would be the repeal of health care reform.
"I believe that the health care bill that was enacted by the current Congress will kill jobs in America, ruin the best health care system in the world, and bankrupt our country," Boehner said at a press conference. "That means we have to do everything we can to try to repeal this bill and replace it with common sense reforms to bring down the cost of health care."
Boehner is not the first nor the only Republican to try to make us believe that the U.S. has the world's best health care system and that we're bound to lose that distinction because of Obamacare. I've heard GOP candidates for president say the same thing in recent months, charging that we need to get rid of a President who clearly is trying to fix something that doesn't need fixing, something that isn't broken in the first place.
Well, those guys need to get out more. Out of the country, in fact. They need to travel to at least one of the many countries that are doing a much better job of delivering high quality care at much lower costs than the good old USA.
If they're not interested in a fact-finding mission abroad, then perhaps they might take a look at two recent reports before they make any other statements about the quality of American health care.
Last week, the 34-nation Organization for Economic Cooperation (OECD) released the results of its most recent study of the health care systems in its member countries, including the U.S., plus six others, for a total of 40. And those results are illuminating.
If Boehner and his fellow Republicans had characterized the U.S. system as the most expensive in the world, they would have been right on target. But they would have been way off base by calling it the best.
The OECD report is just the most recent evidence that Americans are not getting nearly as much bang for the health care buck as citizens of most other developed countries -- and even some countries in the developing world.
The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.
The average expenditure per person in the U.S. is $7,960, a third more than in Norway, the second highest. The OECD average, by comparison, is just $3,233. (It is $3,873 in France.)
Here are some reasons why: Hospital spending is 60 percent higher than the average of five other relatively expensive countries (Switzerland, Canada, Germany, France and Japan); spending on pharmaceuticals and medical goods is much higher here than any of the other countries; and administrative costs are more than two-and-a-half times the average of the others.
It was not all bad news for us. We're number one in the five-year breast cancer survival rate and number two (behind Japan) in the five-year colorectal cancer survival rate. We're also number one in costly knee replacements and number two (again behind Japan) in the number of MRI units per million people.
But we rank 29th in the number of hospital beds per person and 29th in the average length of a stay in the hospital. And we have high rates of avoidable hospital admissions for people with asthma, lung disease, diabetes, hypertension and other common illnesses.
When it comes to access to physicians, we're also near the bottom of the pack. We rank 26th in the number of physicians, especially primary care or family doctors, per 1,000 people.
In terms of life expectancy, we rank 28th, just behind Chile. The average age of death in the U.S. is 78.2, well below the average of 79.5 years in the other OCED countries.
The OECD study backs up the results of a report released by the Commonwealth Fund in October, which showed that the U.S. is actually losing ground to other countries in assuring that its citizens have equal access to affordable, efficient care.
The Commonwealth Fund "scorecard" found that the U.S. is failing to keep up with gains in health outcomes made by other nations. We now rank last out of 16 countries in the Commonwealth Fund study when it comes to deaths that could have been prevented by timely and effective medical care.
A big reason for the dismal results is the fact that more and more Americans are falling into the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured. As of last year, according to the Commonwealth Fund, 81 million adults in the U.S. -- 44 percent of all adults under age 65 -- were either uninsured or underinsured at some point during the year, up from 61 million as recently as 2003.
So the next time you hear a politician claim that the U.S. has the best health care system in the world, be aware that he or she is trying to get you to believe something that is demonstrably not true, undoubtedly for no reason other than to advance their political agenda. We deserve better -- in both rhetoric and results.
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73 Comments so far
Show AllI love this, a true story we need more of in the US mainstream media.
Why would Democrats or Republicans want to take "a fact finding trip abroad to evaluate other nations' healthcare systems" ?
The corporations that own Democrats and Republicans have made it clear that no facts are allowed to get in the way of their propaganda.
Good comment. If they are afraid to travel, they could just look at some national health statistics, comparing the USA to other nations, on life expectancy, infant mortality, cancer survival, etc.
I have French and USA citizenship, and live (fortunately) in France. Age 64, retired since age 60. Seven months ago I severely fractured my femur. Airlifted to a fine clinic: superb surgeon, no infection, no further need for the pain-pills only one week after the operation; then on to a full THREE MONTHS in a re-habilitation center, including an ocean-water therapy pool. I returned home in excellent health and ready to continue my physical therapy as an out-patient. Cost to me: nothing.
Since my return home I have had a full four months of physical rehabilitation with my local therapist. Also balneo-therapy. Also -- weekly massage therapy for lymphatic drainage. This should continue for another month, even longer if my doctor thinks I need to continue. Cost to me: nothing.
I am quite sure that in the USA, without insurance, I would never, never have survived such a fracture. I would be dead from an infection, or a botched surgery, or left on the street by a hospital that would have refused to keep treating me....
What the F is wrong with Amerika? Everything.
The rest of the developed world pays on the average about 1/2 of what Americans pay and also enjoy almost universal coverage. At best the US covers 5/6 ths of its citizens, and charges twice as much for their health care than any other nation. If you are a member of the 1%, yes, you will receive the world's finest health care. For the majority of the other 99%, not the world's finest. For many now of the 99%, you will get nothing more than emergency care and will be charged Wall Street prices for that.
health care in amerika - wow that was a good one
who says you can't get a good laugh out of the MSM anymore......
Quite an illuminating article. Boehner may very well be right when he states that the "U.S. has the world's best health care system..." What he fails to point out is that it is the best for the wealthy and not for those who cannot afford health insurance. What Boehner also conveniently did not mention is that the United States is the only advanced country in the world which does not have universal health care.
And that, in an ideal world, should be considered a national disgrace.
I bet we're no 1. in bankruptcies caused by Medical bills.
You are correct Seaglass, the number one reason for Bankruptcies is Medical Bills by leaps and bounds!
Here's an easy solution! We could make it impossible to go bankrupt for medical bills, just as people can't to get out from under their college debts. See, this is Amerika, land of easy solutions.
If you're an executive of an insurance company, a pharmaceutical company, a hospital, or an investor in those companies...hey, we have the best (most profitable) health care system in the world.
Didn't I read somewhere that the evil empire to the south (Cuba) has full health care for all citizens, cradle to grave....for free. (Not to mention free education through college, but that's another matter.)
Capitalism is alive and well in the US.
Good comment on Cuba's health care coverage, glb.
In his documentary movie, Sicko, Michael Moore traveled with NYC First Responders to Havana, and they wept for the superior health care they received in Cuba.
The prez made affordable health care in the US a joke with the 2010 Democratic Party legislation. More uninsured and underinsured than ever! Can't afford it!
Bill in Dubuque
My husband has insurance thru his employer, but he cannot afford to put all of us on his plan, only him. His portion out of his paycheck would more than double to put the two of us on his plan as his "family", which would about halve his income per month.
I mean, he could afford to put us on his plan, but then we wouldn't be able to eat or be warm or to bathe.
What a trade-off....
Let me make you feel even worse........
In 1975 I started my first full time job in a foundry. Foundries are the bottom of the barrel for enjoyable employment. I was single when I started and insurance cost me $.62 per week. That's 62 cents, per week, for 100% coverage. A year later I was married with a family on the way and it cost me $2.65 per week for a family. 100% coverage.
Now all these years later I'm without coverage of any kind. At 56 years old it's damned expensive for anything but catastrophic coverage.
I'd bet money (if I had any) that no insurance company execs are paying $3000 deductibles and 80% coverage.
Everything is the best in "America" (actually, the USA). Everybody knows that!
For example, while passing through picturesque Bath and Highland counties, Virginia, a local newspaper headline story was about a guy in Warm Springs who got leukemia and needs a bone marrow transplant in Richmond, 250 miles away. He was fired after his 5 days of sick leave, and the leave donated by his co-workers was used up, so he no longer has medical insurance. But Only in America (TM) would an employer be so nice as to allow other workers to donate their sick leave before they fired the sick worker. So, they are collecting donations throughout the two county area (total pop. about 7000). They raised about $3000 of toward the $100,000 needed for the treatments. Where else but America(TM) are people so generous!
[/sarcasm]
Meanwhile, on the back of the same paper, were a real estate agent's ads for couple dozen multi-million dollar homes (one has 9 bedrooms and 10 baths) along the golf links and ski slopes of the Hot Springs resort area. The value of just a few of these houses (owned by outsiders) probably exceeds the liquid net worth of all those 7000 residents combined.
Most USans are incapable of imagining that things could be different or better. Merely to suggest that things could be better would lead one to be roundly denounced as a "socialist" by most residents of Highland and Bath Counties.
" Merely to suggest that things could be better would lead one to be roundly denounced as a "socialist" by most residents of Highland and Bath Counties."
And....they couldn't pay me any higher compliment!
When I read of instances like the one you relate I feel as though I've emigrated to another planet, not simply to another, supposedly civilised, country.
The USAn resistance to change sometimes reaches absurd levels for what should be perfectly practical, non-controversial, non-ideological changes - like doing away with the paper dollar bill and replacing it with a coin, or changing over to the measurement system the rest of the world uses, public transportation improvements...
And whenever I travel from home, I am amazed at how bad everything USAn is - the coffee servied in even supposedly good restaurants is awful, USan beer is awful, USAn cheeses are awful, USan restaurant food is awful - made from the most crappy, flavorless and unwholesome ingriedients imaginable.
Why did every single republican vote against any type of health care reform? why does fox news advertise the repeal of any kind of health care reform? Why did Obama not fight for single payer or at least a public option? Why are we stuck with a for giant profit health care system? It's an easy answer, because we are the 99 percent!
The Democrats want the current corporate friendly healthcare system.
In 2009, Obama could have said, "Let's give the "free-market" health insurance system two more years - they have already had 60 years. If in two years, the US healthcare system is not "number 1" in life expectancy and lowest in cost per citizen, with all citizens having healthcare - if the US is not number 1 in two years then the country will switch to Medicare for all.
Surely American capitalists would have embraced this challenge to show how the "free market" can out perform those nasty "social programs."
Your proposed solution for fixing our health insurance system could be applied across the board, it seems.
Most any of us who have gone into a company as a new hire...especially since the age of drug testing, background and credit checking puts one into an even more blatantly oppressive probationary period...went in hoping the first sixty or ninety days of performance and obedience would result in a full-time position and some job security. But, the past few decades of policy changes, stagnant low-wages and elitist greed have pretty much nullified long-term employee/employer loyalty as it sort of existed.
Despicable that our corporations and government representatives only have to prove their 'profit making' or 'policy making' worth to Wall Street...and aren't forced to jump through the same hoops to earn their keep as the rest of us. Or show through results and merit reviews that they are, first of all, doing the job they were hired or elected to do...most importantly, that they are doing the designated job to the best of their ability and with integrity.
And, as despicable as it is making a set of convoluted oppressive hoops for ANYBODY to jump through, I believe if they are there EVERYBODY should have to jump. And, in the ideal fantasy world my darker side sometimes explores, I believe I would derive some pleasure being in charge of the 'testing' methods that congresspeople and CEOs would be checked out by to see if they are honest, trustworthy, drug and criminal-record free, well-adjusted, customer-service-oriented self-starters who will work happily and loyally for the minimum wage salaries they will be paid for their uncertain length of probationary employment.....kept certain and rewarded only if their service to the common good never wavers.
The peeing in a jar after the job interview (illegal in a lot of countries) is bad enough. But a pre-employment check of the employees personal finances are none of the employer's fucking business! When did they start doing this?
Thank goodness that, as a federal employee, I'm not subjected to this stuff.
How is this kind of privacy-violating crap (which that darling of some here, Ron Paul, would fully support) even legal?
"The peeing in a jar after the job interview..."
Times have changed. If you were vying for federal employment today, you'd be peeing into that little cup.
Now some employers are demanding potential employees hand over their Facebook Myspace et al user accounts and passwords, so the employer can ideologically inspect the worthiness of the potential employee, theres a word for this extreme behaviour.
The OECD found that the United States spends two-and-a-half times more on health care per person than the OECD average. The U.S. even spends more than twice as much as France, which many experts contend has one of the best health care systems on the planet.
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The average expenditure per person in the U.S. is $7,960, a third more than in Norway, the second highest. The OECD average, by comparison, is just $3,233. (It is $3,873 in France
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yea and the us government already right now pays about that 3200 per person, government payments
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and still we have people losing everything because of health care bills, and those are the ones with insurance
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and 50 million uninsured in this country
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I'm surprised no one caught this, as I suppose Ray Del Camino would...
Mr. Potter offers:
"A big reason for the dismal results is the fact that more and more Americans are falling into the ranks of the uninsured and underinsured. As of last year, according to the Commonwealth Fund, 81 million adults in the U.S. -- 44 percent of all adults under age 65 -- were either uninsured or underinsured at some point during the year, up from 61 million as recently as 2003."
This is a VERY unfortunate comment because it conflates INSURANCE access with health care. Most people in the C.D. forum recognize that the role of insurers is about as necessary as that of the moneychangers turning a solid economy into a junk heap of derivatives and swaps.
Insurers provide NO service. There should be no intermediary between the hospital/doctor/specialist and the person paying... lest it be The Government. If everyone pays in a portion, the money pool would be big enough for everyone to swim in, without 30% being skimmed off the top to pay for CEO salaries and underlings who are tasked with finding flaws in insurance claims precisely so that they need not pay a penny out for patient care.
Let's not reinforce the need for, or role of insurance companies. They gamed the system, have a LOT to do with rising costs, and then they cut out the little guys who can't pay to play... this is both amoral and bad business. As RAY has pointed out, it keeps elderly people clinging to jobs that should be made available to the young; and it sticks small U.S. businesses with noncompetitive costs that other saner nations' small businesses need not budget for.
Here! Here! Excellent.
Also to clarify to egg2001 posting.
Dear Egg: I do not think it was 60-years ago. I started working in a hospital in 1980, and in 1985 or there about in came the HMO’s. We, the staff and doctors tried to resist having an insurance company telling us how to take care of our patients.
Unfortunately, management won that battle. Looking back now and seeing all of this I am sure there was more than one healthcare facility where at first some money must have greased someones palms until this thing took off. Money must have changed hand somewhere. Then all insurance companies got into the game whether they were a HMO or not.
Reading all of this other posts, I realize that the wheels are really coming off and we need to be ready to take care of each other.
It would not hurt any family to have in their library the following type of books and to review them and practice them and make plans with them. Books such as …medical, disease identification , first aid, birthing, child care, gardening, cooking , storage and root cellaring of food, animal care, raising animals as food, making your own , clothes etc. Books are important….the Internet may not be available to us later.
This is not just a crazy survivalist’s plea. You get ready for yourself, your family and for anyone else who needs your help. It pays to be ready. If everyone plans ahead , we are all made stronger.
Excellent catch.
I blame the Democrats for this, because over the last couple of years, in an effort spearheaded from the White House, they stopped talking about the need for wider access to health care and started talking about the need for for wider access to health insurance.
I totally agree with you, Two A. One way to offset the phenomenal sums "donated" to Wall Street & the big banks is to get THEM to underwrite all Americans if the 1% (their money club) insist on keeping the insurance RACKET in the game. Either that, or they all face charges and return to the nation's citizens, what their cozy relationship with lobbyists delivered unto them. On entirely false grounds.
"This is a VERY unfortunate comment because it conflates INSURANCE access with health care."
But in the U.S., this makes perfect sense, because lack of insurance prevents access to health care (except for emergency care). This is why 43,000 Americans die every year from lack of access to health care--they don't have insurance.
Without insurance, you aren't going to get in to a doctor's office to check out that suspicious mole, or that cough that never stops, or get help with chronic diseases such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, or chronic obstructive lung disease. When you finally are sick enough for the E.R., you'll get stabilized and then you'll be on your own again. Until, like 43,000 other Americans each year, you die.
You are right, Siouxrose; insurance companies are nothing but parasites. But Mr. Potter is correct to equate lack of insurance with lack of health care in this blighted country of ours.
Obamacare isn't any good... neither is anything the GOP wants to do. It's all corporate friendly thinking...
I have a very hard time understanding why Americans are SO opposed to universal health care. I get why the politicians are against it, it cuts into corporate profits... but the people? It's madness. I guess you've have the whole "socialism is evil" crap shoved down your throats all your life so many of you actually believe it. I can honestly tell you though, that Universal Healthcare is an AWESOME thing. I get hurt, I get sick, I can get care for FREE. If I have a 2 month hospital stay, it's FREE... unless I want a private room, which I have to pay for myself.... but all the tests, medications, etc are all free. No going bankrupt from medical bills if something unexpected happens... Insurance premiums? Super affordable. Each province is different... some don't charge at all! In Alberta, your insurance is free. All paid for with taxes. And what's the result? A healthier population.
I was born right in the mid-western heart of the US of A and I am appalled that so many people here are opposed to something so fundamental to the good health of the nation as universal healthcare! I really don't get how completely 'threatened' the masses feel and how naively they join in on the demonizing of anything that even remotely resembles the 'socialism' we've been so long warned against as a commie scheme to take away our 'freedom'...when the loudest voices of warning are those of the corrupted bullies who have already pretty successfully taken them away.
I've wished for years that Canada was not so terribly far north of the equator (my bones more and more prefer the warmth)...especially living in the US within the unfortunate void of 'uninsured with health issues but still too many years from social security and medicare' (for all the good what's left of those two things will do by the time I can officially retire with full benefits).
I'm pretty sure the raising of my retirement age (probably everyone near my age) from sixty-five to sixty-eight was not really done because we are living longer and more healthily. The abysmal lack of decent affordable healthcare aside, I expect that seemingly insignificant delay for many of us and the likely deaths of some before reaching these higher retirement ages will save our corrupt government a substantial enough amount on such wasteful "entitlements" to make the blood-suckers extra proud of themselves.
The people in this country have never been offered a choice to support universal health care. If they were, they would overwhelmingly support it.
The fault lies not with the general public, and not with the Republicans. The fault lies with those who gain office, AKA "Democrats," and run various liberal organizations and then solicit donations and take funding, on the promise that they will fight for the working class people, and then betray them.
Let's stop blaming the beleaguered and over-matched people in the working class.
The fault is with those who could be speaking for the working class. It would be more accurate to look in the mirror to find where the fault lies, then it is to point fingers at WalMart shoppers or whatever.
I do agree with you, Two Americas, that if the prospect of universal healthcare was presented as the positive, necessary and doable alternative to the mess we have the masses would overwhelmingly support it.
That so many, even within the most disenfranchised populations, can still be steered to support the corporately/politically/religiously motivated and projected views that some of the most needed good things would be somehow bad for our economy and our democracy or even our very souls is what I blame the complacently uninformed public for.
So many, even within the most disenfranchised populations, can still be steered to support the corporately/politically/religiously motivated and projected views, as you say, for one reason and one reason only.
There is no powerful and coherent countervailing narrative.
The fault for that lies with us, those who could be providing that narrative, not with the Republicans, not with the "PTB," and most certainly not with the deluded and suffering general population.
TWO A: You left out a VERY critical component: how the media defines news and how it frames the issues! How many pundits were seen on the MSM advocating for a public health system that ultimately extended Medicare? How many were seen showing the numbers, and how the nation would benefit ($) if the insurance SCAM was out of the picture? In short, how many got the facts, as opposed to the right wing fat wind bag version direct from Rush Limbaugh, or his ideological clones Glenn Beck et al, repeating the macho lingo that "We don't need no stinkin socialism here!"
Perhaps it's that I am trained as an educator that I place such a high premium on the value of the public discourse and what passes for media. I hold the 4th estate to account for the degree to which it's served as an odious tool of propganda in any number of arenas. None of them have been of benefit to the 99%...
Agreed.
Well, I live in Canada and I cannot even imagine not having a universal health-care system...
The problem is, it is under constant attack by the neo-cons here -- Canada was stupid enough to give the Straussian Steve Harper (far right-wing christian fundamentalist) a majority government... He wants a US style corporate 'for profit' system in the worst way - who knows what diabolical plans he has for Canada's public single-payer system.
I agree whole heartedly, but it's not just money that is a problem, in the United States we have nearly as many people die from the lack of health care each and every month as died at the twin towers on 911 or American deaths in Iraq, each and every single month. But yet these people have been brainwashed into believing socialized health care is bad and want no part of it, until they get sick that is!
The people in the US are not opposed to universal health care.
Perhaps things have changed, but up until at least 2009, most polls showed that a majority of USAns DO support government provided universal healthcare coverage - even when the poll question stated it would involve higher taxes.
And regarding Canada, My brother lives in Ontario and currently has an injured sholder. I was shocked his accounting of the gaping holes there now are in the province's coverage. Physical therapy isn't covered. And the wait times for surgery or diagnostic tests for non-serious but nontheless painful conditions are too long. So, most Ontarian's now have to get supplemental private insurance - usually through their employers. This partial dismantling of the coverage was done under an earlier Conservative government, but never changed back by the subsequent Liberal McGuinty government in power since 2003. Creeping USAnification.
"why Americans are SO opposed to universal health care".
Its because the middle 30% who have vaguely average jobs that provide mediocre healthcare are terrified that the system will be opened up and spread out to the lower 30% that have bad or no healthcare, at the moment if somebody is a drone in a office or factory, they are tied to their job by the HI, makes for a very docile and compliant workforce. Healthcare in the US is very rationed at the moment, rationed by fear and employment.
If you reduce down any problem or illness (or even income, taxes and money) to its most basic component, it boils down to pain and suffering, PAIN is governments most usefully tool to keep control, cops of every description from your most basic deputy in some small town to the urban warriors that patrol cities int their kevlar 'Judge Dread' outfits, ALL carry an arsenal of pain tools.
Pain and the fear of pain (and suffering) is the most useful social control tool.
John Boehner doesn't have to travel very far to find a country with a different style of health care system that may be better than the one in the USA: he can come over to his neighbours in Canada. According to the report, in 2009 Canada spent $4363 per person on health care, the USA $7960; life expectancy at birth 80.7 years for Canadians, 78.2 years for Americans. Every Canadian (and I mean every Canadian, no exceptions) has access to health care free at the point of use which provides for longer life expectancy and costs society less.
There is a lot of blame being directed in this thread at the general public, at the working class people.
The house slaves love to blame the field slaves for all of the problems. In this way they serve their masters well. Many of those people call themselves "liberals" and "progressives."
Those paid better than 70-90% of the population, sitting in comfortable offices talking on the phone and shuffling paper on behalf of the bosses and owners, whose interests they can be relied upon to defend and promote and justify, who are paid to the degree that they are effective mouthpieces and technocrats for the bosses and owners, want to blame those who scrub the toilets, mop the floors, wash the windows, mow the lawns, wait on tables, prepare the food, change the diapers, care for the elderly and infirm, stock the shelves, run the cash register, drive cab, haul the trash, clean the offices, repair the cars, tend and harvest the crops, replace the shingles, pave the streets, climb the utility poles, work the assembly line, clean the sewers, fix the plumbing, lay the brick, operate the machinery, wire the buildings, haul the freight, deliver the mail, dig the ditches, package the goods, and perform a thousand other essential and thankless tasks.
THAT is the problem.
I have, very recently, returned from traveling America. I didn't take out insurance in spite of my Doctor's advice, (He has practiced in the U S). The cost for one month would have doubled my air fares alone. I went on to Europe secure in the knowledge that should I become ill (I am 85). I wouldn't have to worry as the host nations would be magnanimous.
In Texas when confronted with a socialist label I recounted my son's situation.
Prognosis five years ago was a life expectancy, because of multiple cancers, of less than six months. His oncology treatments are often in Brisbane involving a four hours travel to a major hospital. The cost of travel, the treatment, and on occasions hospitalisation has been cost free. His local Doctor who he visits weekly, and his medications, are all cost free.
Why has he lasted much longer than his initial prognosis? In part it is because the worry of not receiving first class care, because of financial considerations, does not exist. I haven't had to mortgage my home, he hasn't had to sell any of his personal assets, he also receives a disability pension which while not excessive is sufficient to support a reasonably comfortable life, One of the reasons Americans die earlier is that they have lost the will to live as they can no longer afford to carry on being a burden to their families.
TOM: Thank you for sharing your poignant personal story. Donna Smith has written extensively on this subject and explained the enormous stress level that she and her husband have been forced to endure. There's even humiliation from family members! And they, like many, HAD insurance. But we know how insurance operates... its intent is NOT to provide care, but to seek out any loophole to use as a ruse (or excuse) to deny it! Ill people fighting over insurance forms, possibly seeking legal help to decipher what the fine print hidden inside long policy forms mean... it must be a nightmare. I figure the best defense is to eat well, stay away from as much processed food as possible, get fresh air, daily exercise, and drink NO soft drinks, nor smoke cigarettes. Of course, our soil, air, water, and many foods carry traces of toxic chemicals these days, so even the best efforts become an uphill struggle!
This article makes me think if it isn't time to start focusing on occupying hospitals. If uninsured and underinsured people who need treatment were to be accompanied by activists and barricade a major hospital demanding free treatment and there were people enough to document the occupation and share with independent media, it would be hard for the system to tear gas and pepper spray cancer and dialysis patients and not suffer a PR hit. It may help to draw in more of the 99% since so many are under or uninsured and face a personal or familial catastrophe.
Millions of Americans have no healthcare and with the GOP will never. For some weird reason the GOP keeps a foot in the door.
It is the Democrats that demolished any hope for universal health care, despite strong support for it from the public. It is the Democrats who have placed Medicare and Social Security "on the table" - something that the Republicans could not pull off. It is the Democrats who made sure that the insurance companies were taken care of first.
Who are you trying to fool? The republicans said in the thirties that social security would run the country broke and they have fought tooth and nail against social security ever since, in the early sixties the republicans said Medicare would run the country broke and fought it tooth and nail, every single republican voted against any kind of health care reform, it will break the country and run us bankrupt, but the basted republican lying bastards will protect the top two percent no matter how many Americans suffer to pay for the wealthys tax breaks. The public option was removed only in hope that the republicans would not filibuster the affordable health care law, that little weasel Lieberman from Hartford stopped the single payer system with the help of every god damn republican.
Constitutional: The real answer is that it takes two to tango, and both "teams" were (and are) in on The Fix. Why? Because our political system has become absolutely enslaved by the big money interests. Thirty years ago you did not have 1000 lobbyists on K-street. Elections did not cost mega millions either. Heck, before CLINTON signed it away (through the deregulation of media ownership), PUBLIC SERVICE announcements were intended to give the public the information it needed to know about candidates, without turning the media, election time, into a virtual whore house!
Most readers of CD, even if they once leaned towards Democrats, have seen enough betrayal through Clinton AND Obama to have had their stomachs turn over once and for all. While the style of Democrat differs in appearance from that of the Republicans (both brand names), you would be hard pressed to find any substantive differences. Obama's SHAMEFUL presidency made that abundantly clear.
I have lost 2 friends because of beliefs like yours. They believe the theatrical... that those big bad Republicans MADE Obama lean further and further right of center. That the poor guy was just "trying to get along," or find common ground. Nothing could be further from the truth. When you examine HIS cabinet appointments, and HIS bail-out of Wall Street, and HIS escalation of wars, and HIS choice to exclude single payer even from any discussion, and HIS stating NOTHING in support of labors, unions, or the principles of fair play as relayed through the OWS movement, and HIS nod to big oil, and every other inexcusable prostitution of the nation's critical interests to big money at so precarious a time... you have to be BLIND not to recognize the full scale scam that's been played on voters through the PRETENSE of antagonistic party politics.
That game is over... much of the audience is leaving the theater and heading for the streets.