I can say that I am considerably unimpressed. Think about this. The United States isn't even in the top-ten lists of how the rest of world measures good health care. 45 million are completely uninsured. Another 60 million are under-insured. Our infant mortality rates almost put us on par with developing countries like India, and certainly below most every other industrialized country in the world. We are not in the top ten in life expectancy. More people in the US die from delayed care (while waiting for a needed identified procedure or treatment) than in the countries with "socialized" medicine. And we spend one out of every five dollars on a health care system that ignores 15% of the population, almost ignores another 20% and doesn't provide that good of care for much of the rest. Come on, think about Spain. It has better indicators of health for its entire population, and spends a fraction of the per capita costs that the US spends on our inadequate system. We claim to be the best most equal country in the world and a country that provides more opportunities for its people. Except for health care, that is. Those countries that immediately come to mind as innovators and world leaders, like Spain, and Norway, and more than 20 others, provide universal health care that is innovative, more cost effective, more inclusive, and which provide most of their population with better care.
OK, we have a crappy system. But no one seems to be talking that much about that. Instead they are talking about how awful it would be if the government provided any of this service, much less managed a single payer system like those of most of the leading countries alrealdy have. "Keep the Government out of Health Care!" read the posters and many blogs. It is so ironic. Here is one snippet from an AP article that caught my eye: "Audrey Steele, 82, from New Bedford, said she does not want the government to get involved with health care because "they just make a mess of everything," referring to the $700 billion bailout of financial institutions that was used to pay for lavish conferences and hefty executive compensation."
I find this really ironic. Here is an 82 year old woman who no doubt depends on government programs, like Social Security, for instance. Remember the cry to privatize social security? Can you imagine how that would have turned out? No, the government does a pretty good job of running the largest pension plan in the country--it is solvent, while millions of other private plans are bankrupt. More than 37 million people, like Audrey who commented above, rely on a government-run single payer system for their insurance right now--no one has called for people over 65 to get out of that terrible government system and go try and find health care on the open market. No, most people on Medicare would be un-insureable on the open market. So, government insurance is fine for one privileged class of people but others don't deserve it?
I know that there are real, solid, arguments which show that government-run single payer programs are not perfect. But as they say, perfection is the enemy of progress. This country needs a good health care system, one that serves everyone, not one that only serves a portion of the population and poorly serves the rest of its citizens. This Darwinian approach, where people are actually saying, "I have mine, the rest don't deserve to have it," recalls the Gospel of Wealth and the 1800s and the belief that "poor" people are poor or don't have health care because they don't deserve it. I advocate for more of a Social Gospel where the government provides equal opportunities for all in areas like education and health care.
But what do I know? I am just a &%@#!@#% heathen liberal. But one that thinks that all people in the richest country in the world should have something that approaches basic health care.
http://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/quickfacts/stat_snapshot/
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