T.R. Reid, a correspondent for the Washington Post, traveled across the globe for medical answers to his nagging shoulder problem. In the process, he learned much about health care in other nations. His book, “The Healing of America (Penguin Press, 2009)” should be required readings for all Americans.
Pertinent data begs for an overhaul of a dysfunctional U.S. health care system. We spend 17 percent of our GDP on health care – well more than any other nation and increasing annually). And yet we have 45 million citizens uninsured and 45,000 who die every year due to the lack of insurance coverage.
We are the richest nation on the globe, but rank only 24th in life expectancy. Our infant mortality rate is appalling — more than twice that of Sweden, Japan, France, and Norway. The United States doesn’t come close to cracking the top 10 among nations in satisfaction with health care — Japan, France, Great Britain, Germany, and various others lead the way. Many small businesses cannot afford to insure employees, and a growing number of families go bankrupt each year because of health care costs.
We in the United States have an irrational health care system centered on a “private, for-profit insurance” model. It doesn’t work, if you accept the premise that one’s health is an economic “need” not a “want,” which is to say a “right” of all Americans.
All other industrial nations find universal health care a moral imperative. Only the United States stumbles on this sense on human decency. Some among us have a cultural blind spot leading to a bias that says “the free market is flawless and government messes everything up.” This is “stupid thought, crazy talk.”
It is a contradiction to expect a health care system based on private, for-profit markets to achieve universal coverage. With private medical insurance, the way a firm maximizes profits is to deny coverage, or render it prohibitively expensive, to those who need it most and are the least healthy among us, e.g., with a pre-existing condition.
Our democracy is compromised when many Congressional representatives are in the pocket of big insurance and drug companies, who profit immensely from the status quo. A sane society would discard this economic arrangement and start anew.
As Reid points out, the 40 other wealthy, industrial nations across the globe figured out universal health care long ago. We don’t have to “reinvent the wheel.” There are models available to adapt: Single-payer (e.g. Canada and France), socialized (e.g., Great Britain), and the Bismarck, non-profit insurance model (Germany, The Netherlands, Japan).”
They all work much better than our broken system. The irony is that we already have examples of each in the form of Medicare, Veterans Administration, and non-profit insurance firms as starters, if our political system wasn’t held hostage to the shortsighted and selfish.
As for his shoulder, Reid found U.S. surgeons only too willing summarily replace the joint. This is what doctors do operating in a fee-based system that encourages expensive procedures fueling medical costs. Health care providers in other countries recommended a variety of therapies, short of joint replacement, that were much less costly.
The current health care argument is muddied with cries that universal health care would be prohibitively expensive. Yet, we are the world’s richest nation, while all other industrial countries can afford it. This argument doesn’t wash. Our failing is a matter of misplaced priorities blinded by extravagant consumerism and military adventurism.
Richard Van Scotter lives in Colorado Springs. EDITOR’S NOTE: This is an online-only column and has not been edited.
