America the Sick

Let's hope money can buy happiness because it sure isn't buying Americans much in the way of health.

A report from the U.S. National Academy of Sciences finds that, although Americans pay more for health care and services than anyone else, they're less healthy and likely to die earlier than people of any other affluent nation.

Even the best-off Americans – those who have health insurance, a college education, a high income and healthy behaviour – are sicker than their peers in comparable countries, says the report by the US National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine.

"We were struck by the gravity of these findings," said Steven H Woolf, professor of family medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and chair of the panel that wrote the report. "Americans are dying and suffering at rates that we know are unnecessary because people in other high-income countries are living longer lives and enjoying better health. What really concerns our panel is why, for decades, we have been slipping behind." The report, US Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health, was commissioned by the National Institutes of Health. It compares the US with 16 affluent democracies, including Australia, Canada and Japan and many in Europe including Britain. There have been similar findings from the Commonwealth Fund over some years, but they have compared the US with only a handful of nations.

Unless action is taken, the report says, the health of Americans will probably continue to fall behind. "The tragedy is not that the United States is losing a contest with other countries but that Americans are dying and suffering from illness and injury at rates that are demonstrably unnecessary. Superior health outcomes in other nations show that Americans also can enjoy better health," says the report.

The US public is unaware of the issues, says the report. "I don't think most parents know, on average, infants, children, and adolescents in the US die younger and have greater rates of illness and injury than youth in other countries," said Woolf.

The NAS report adds perspective for Canadians beset by rightwing promises about a better future with private healthcare.   The promises are demonstrably false and the rhetoric is empty. 

The Joys of Private Healthcare - Not

Vietnam vet, Ron Flanagan of Colorado, has been in the fight of his life - against cancer - the past two years.   Last week he was getting prepped for a bone biopsy when his wife called.   His insurance company had just dropped him.

It seems Ron's wife, Frances, goofed when paying  a previous month's premium online.  She hit the 7 key instead of the 9, leaving the payment two cents short.  The insurer, Ceridian Cobra Services (never buy insurance from a company that names itself after a venomous snake), is sticking to its guns.

Only in America?  Not if our conservatives get a chance to shoehorn private healthcare into Canada.

Americans and their Vaunted Healthcare

I guess healthcare insurance in the United States is great while everyone is awash in cheap money and skyrocketing housing prices but it's not nearly so great when reality sets in. From the soon-to-be-defunct Boston Globe:


As the economic recession persists, people who are unemployed or worried about losing their jobs are putting off medical care and living with illnesses and conditions that aren't critical, but can be debilitating. Some are delaying having precancerous tumors removed; others are forgoing knee or shoulder surgery. While insurance often covers much of the costs associated with such procedures, there are usually deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses that can add up to thousands of dollars. For those lacking insurance, the price of most elective procedures is beyond their reach.


According to a recent Massachusetts Hospital Association survey, 59 percent of hospitals statewide reported a drop in elective surgeries in 2008 and into the beginning of fiscal 2009. The Red Cross, which supplies blood used in surgery, has also seen a drop in demand, causing it to cancel Massachusetts blood drives scheduled for March and April.

And as more people forgo treatment, hospitals are suffering financially, industry specialists say. Their profits depend heavily on lucrative surgical procedures paid for by private insurers. In addition to seeing fewer patients for elective day-surgeries and overnight treatments, hospital income from investments is dramatically down because of the economy. Profit margins at Massachusetts hospitals have dropped from an average of .7 percent in the last quarter of 2008 to .3 percent in the first quarter of this year, according to the hospital association.


To compensate, hospitals are cutting jobs, and canceling or postponing expansion projects. Nursing jobs, once abundant, for the first time in a decade are in short supply.

Is there a better argument than this for universal, single-payer health care?