US Spends More On Health Care For Less Results
By ThePresidentialCandidates.US on Jul 6, 2009 in Uncategorized
The big lie from the Republicans on health care reform is that a “public option” will cost a lot of money. The truth is that in the long run it will actually save our country a huge amount of money while improving our health care results.
Take a look at this chart:
(click to enlarge.)
As you can see while the US spends more on health care than any other developed nation, we actually have the lowest life expectancy. We also are the only developed nation without universal health care. We have about 50 million people without health care coverage at any time.
The truth is “socialized health care” is a good thing. It has been proven to be more effective and less costly than our capitalist system in countries all around the world.
One of the big reasons our system is broken is because the profit motive is in all of the wrong places. The health insurance companies make more money by denying care to those who need it most and by not covering people who have a “pre existing condition” in the first place.
And since so many people don’t have health care coverage, a lot of people end up going to the ER for what should be a simple visit to their doctor. And a lot of preventable health issues are not prevented.
It’s long past time for serious health care reform. And serious health care reform means ripping power away from the health insurance industry and instead giving it to the doctors and the patients. The old canard about the “government getting between you and your doctor” is the biggest pile of dung ever shoveled. Right now there’s already someone between you and your doctor and all they’ve got is dollar signs in their eyes: The health insurance industry.
We need true universal coverage single payer health care in the United States. But if we cannot get what we truly need, at least we can have the compromise of the “public option.” Certainly anything less than that is a failure.
Flat out agree..this chart should be published in every blog/newspaper everyday until the bill is signed into law. I don’t think people know what the real numbers look like.
jbrandonf | Jul 6, 2009 | Reply
We have the lowest life expectancy because so many people are overweight and obese — more than in any other developed country. People forget that there is a trade-off with everything. Canada is struggling to control healthcare costs with healthcare eating up more and more of its general budget. Because Canada has to ration care, there are long waits for care — much longer than in the U.S. and Canadians are going south to the U.S. just to get care.
Leila | Jul 9, 2009 | Reply
Certainly the obesity problem in the US has a large part to do with our lower life expectancy but to discount the fact that about 1 in 5 Americans have no health care as a factor is ridiculous. Obviously our abysmal health care system is a large factor in our lower life expectancies.
As far as your nonsense about “rationing” of health care. We ration health care in the US too, it’s just based on how much money somebody has.
admin | Jul 9, 2009 | Reply