A Grim Reminder: 48,000 and Counting
President Obama signed the second part (reconciliation) of the health care reform bill on March 30, 2010. That's great, but the provisions that will cover the uninsured haven't clicked in yet.
Our elected officials started work on the proposed health insurance reform bill on July 30, 2009. Harvard researchers estimate that 122 Americans die every day as a result of not having health insurance.
So, the estimated number of uninsured Americans who have died while the politicians in the Senate and Congress played politics and delayed new benefits for the sake of the health care insurers is
.
Oceans Away - A New Health Reform Debate Kicks Off
We’ve compared the United States system with the socialized ones in several articles, including one that took a close look at how we all pay for our health care. We noted that: ” In hard Dollars, our spending rose from $1,000 per person in 1980 to over $6,000 in 2006, while the Europeans went from about $500 to $3,000. Hence the often repeated claim that we spend twice as much per person as our competitors. It’s true.” Our costs have risen even more steeply in the past few years and will accelerate away from the pack this year.
That would be good if we actually had better health care than any other nation in the world. Something that politicians chant over and over like zombies. It’s true that you are more likely to be treated rapidly in an emergency than in many other countries, but that’s about the only advantage. Life expectancies, disease outcome statistics, child mortality and many other factors put the United States very low in all independent studies of the world’s health care systems. We ranked 24, 37 and 72 in the largest recent surveys! Here’s a summary of some of the facts:
The better figure is in bold type.
1 The average out-of-pocket medical bill rises to 35% of income for seniors and the chronically ill.
2 Ranges from 79 to 80.2 with an average of 80.
The debate starts in the United Kingdom
Here in the United States we spend about 15% of our Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health care, while the top five European countries average under 10%. The United Kingdom (UK) spends at the low end with a figure of 7.8% for its health care system. As an election approaches it’s normal for debate on the UK National Health System (NHS) to heat up, especially when there’s a chance of a change of party in Whitehall, from Labour (left wing Democrats) to Conservative (left wing Republicans). The NHS was created under Labour Party rule. There’s also a third major party, the Liberal Democrats, plus a dozen other significant parties.
The main problem facing the NHS, as with most other countries in the world, is an aging population with complex health problems and a declining number of young taxpayers feeding money into the system. Most of the money that goes into funding the four main components of the National Health System, which runs hospitals, ambulance systems, research facilities and clinics, besides paying health care professionals, comes from taxes. Before you jump to any conclusions, remember that individual taxation rates in the UK are now lower than in most American states. Health care costs are also half what they are here, with the difference largely attributable to the profits and inefficiencies of the private health insurance companies in the United States. So, they’re debating how to tune a system to correct problems and how to cover the increasing costs due to an aging population.
Last week, Age Concern and Help the Aged held a “care summit.” Its goal was to provide all three main political parties the neutral platform needed to re-open dialogue about reforming the current care and support system. Each of their spokespeople outlined their proposals on reforming care. They then debated the issues with experts, care users and seniors.
Here’s how Andrew Harrop, Director of Policy and Public Affairs for Age Concern and Help the Aged, summed it all up:
However, the parties continue to be bitterly divided on whether there should be new compulsory payments to fund care in later life. All the options being discussed require more public money, in one way or another and politicians need to say where it will come from. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
In our view, none of the parties have yet set out credible proposals for comprehensive reform of the care system. In particular, they need to say how they will improve the quality and availability of services. We urge them all to set out their plans in full before the election to give voters a choice. Politicians owe it to all of us to maintain the momentum behind care reform and come up with long-term solutions.”
Let the battle begin! At least they’re starting from a better situation than we are. We’ll revisit the situation in the UK as our own legislators battle it out.