Americans, particularly those on the right, strongly claim the American healthcare system is the best in the world. The greatest system, by what measure and standard? If it is the greatest number of doctors per capita, yes. If it is the most ornate and beautiful hospitals, yes. Most moderate to large communities have hospitals that are as appointed as major corporate offices. If the measure is the country that develops more medicines and machines than any other, the United States comes out on top. If the measure point is the country with the most well equipped hospitals on a per capita basis, the answer is a clear yes. Small hospitals have a plethora of the latest machines even if they sit idle several hours of the day for if they did not patients would go to the hospital down the road. Each hospital needs to have the machines in order to compete with their neighbors. It the measure is the country with a greater number of skilled medical professionals on a per capita basis than any others, yes the United States is the best. If the measure is the system that creates wealth for doctors, suppliers, hospitals, etc., most definitely the United States is the place to invest in healthcare!!
As the American healthcare system is the best, it is a reasonable expectation for that to translate into having one of the highest overall life expectancy rates in the industrialized world. If it is not at the top, American should be in the top five, and then barely edged out by those above. Does that expectation hold up?
The United States has an overall life expectancy of 78.06 years. There are 44 countries in with longer overall life expectancies than the United States. The major industrialized countries with a longer life expectancy rates are: Sweden (80.83), Australia (80.62), Canada (80.34), Italy, Spain, Norway, Israel, France, Switzerland, Japan, Austria, South Korea, Netherlands, New Zealand, Germany (78.95), Belgium, United Kingdom (78.7), and Finland (78.66). The only major industrialized country that has a lower overall life expectancy rate than the United States is Russia.
In America the Canadian healthcare is disparaged as being inferior to the United States. Whenever arguments for a government run health system is raised, the medical lobbyists ask if Americans want to settle for an inferior system like Canada’s. Canada has a life style so similar to the America. The difference between Ontario and Michigan, Ohio and New York is less than the differences those states have with North Carolina or Texas. If Canada which is culturally similar to the US has a healthcare system that is so inferior, then why are Canada’s overall life expectancy rates two years higher than their neighbor?
While the American health care system has great strengths, the claim becomes suspect when we look at how this great system translates into the care received by the average middle class family. Amongst western countries, on a per capita basis the United States has one of the lowest rates of its citizens with health insurance. Yet on a per capita basis is spends more on healthcare than most other industrialized countries.
In America tens of millions of its citizens will go three or more years without seeing a doctor for a basic check-up. Every year millions delay receiving care due to the cost of medical care. Thinking they only have a mild ailment that will clear-up too many Americans delay going to the doctor only to find out that they have a major issue that only has become more significant during the delay.
That a good number of Americans fear government healthcare should not be undervalued. A large portion of that fear is created and sustained by the healthcare industry which clearly has a significant invested interest in maintaining the status quo. While they are in the business of providing healthcare, their primary goal is not quality service as inexpensively as possible. We must be clear, the primary goal of the industry is to maximize profit throughout the system. The lobbyists have the public that managed care means some bureaucrat will make their medical care decisions rather than them and their doctor. They are told that they will not be able see the doctor of their choice but that as some government official will make that determination for them.
Those who live in places Canada, England, Sweden, Norway, Australia and Germany have not experienced some bureaucrat making such decisions in their government managed care system. In America a good number of health care plans require patients to call their insurance company, in other words an insurance bureaucrat, prior to receiving a host of treatments. Many health insurance plans in America have an approved list of doctors and hospitals, and if you receive treatment from medical practitioners or hospitals not on the list, the patient pays a much greater portion of the expense. In other words, the rationing of care by bureaucrats that the healthcare industry says will happen in government run system happens more frequently in the existing American healthcare system than it does in Canada.
The healthcare lobby, whether it is the lobby for doctors, hospitals, pharmaceutical firms or the healthcare insurance industry, has an invested interest in maintaining the current structure. They have and will continue to play upon the ignorance of the general public about what the care the average citizen receives in other industrialized countries through their government managed care. They have and will inflame the fears of the unknown. Amongst the uninformed, the fear of the unknown is a powerful weapon.
One of the fundamental principles of the free market is that if you produce a superior product that is properly priced that you will not only be the leader in the market but that others will follow your lead. In other words, if you are successful others will mirror you practice. If America truly has the best medical system in the world and government healthcare is such a terrible system, why is it that no other industrialized country is adopting the American system?
Reflective Wanderings - Reflections on various topics that arise out of my personal, life and professional experiences. There are also are some family related news, travels and pictures.
5 comments:
as someone who works in an er, i can not imagine turning away ANYONE just because they have no money. a person needing surgery for cancer needs treatment, whether they make a million dollars or four dollars. to me it's a human rights issue - people not receiving basic and necessary health care because of their financial state.
Jenn, hospitals are not allowed to turn away cases where life is at risk. If you lack insurance, they will help, but in the coming months the patient and family is hounded over and over again for payment. The number one cause for families filing for bankruptcy (may change with the mortgage meltdown) is medical bills.
This was a great piece!
I'm a huge proponent of the Canadian Health Care system, although it requires a complete over haul in both philosphy and service.
For years, we have upheld almost to the point of a divine mandate that only the government can provide health care. Yet over the past 10-15 years, waiting lines have increased for essential diagnostic tests, more Canadians than ever are without a family doctor. Many small communities don't even have the staff to keep their hospitals open. In larger urban areas, hospitals are grossly understaffed and in some cased under equipped.
Government run health care here in Canada has become very inefficient in both servicing the needs of Canadians and in the fiscal management department. Fiscally it has come to the point that health care now takes up more tax dollars than anything else.
There is a ground swell, it remains small, but I certainly can see it developing to a tremendous force for change in how health care delivery is managed.
There is now talk about allowing for profit providers of health care, for diagnostic testing, for hospital management, for surgery etc. This would be in no way a two tier health system where the rich get to the front of the line because they can pay. Many are crying "Americanized Healthcare!!" There is fear that we may go down the disatrous route of American health care.
NO!! That is not what is being suggested and what is now being practiced in pockets of Quebec. Under a proposed for profit health care system that runs paralell with the government run system, for profit private health care providers would not be allowed to turn anyone away due to financial means. Financially, nothing would change for the consumer of health care as government health insurance would still pay for it.
For profit health care providers would be mandated to work within government health care insurance programmes.
It has been suggested that the benefit of such a paralell system would be more access to medical care and testings - this would be wrapped in a system designed to be more efficient economically - in the long term saving government run universal health care which we as Canadians uphold as one of most treasured.
did you know that most European countries, Australia, New Zealand already have such a system in place. They don't get our phobia when it it comes to private delivery of health care.
I totally get our phobia - We are a small nation living living next to a country with 10X's our population. We fill at any moment the dam we have worked hard at maintaining to keep Americanization of our health system at bay, will burst. We look in horror south of the border at "private delivery of health care" and the millions that go without the healthcare services they need. We are afriad that we will become like them.
Only time, cool heads and rational conversations will we be able to move this need to tweak our health care system forward. This will allow us to continue to have a healthy care system we value so highly as Canadians.
Stephen, thank you for your comments.
Whew! That's a lot of reading my very long winded brothers!!! LOL!
While our system is far from perfect, it works and works well. When Cameron cut his finger, and needed stitches, I didn't need to worry about how much it was going to cost. When it got infected, I was able to get him in right away to see the doctor and have it taken care of. If we were in the US, I would have likely found myself asking if it was really neccessary to have it taken care of, and maybe played the wait-and-see game. The infection would have got worse, and ended up in the joint (as the doctor said that it was quite deep and that was what he was worried of) ... then it would have led to severe consequences and surgery.
I'm so glad that I don't have to play the wait-and-see game, nor do I have to worry about what the cost will be to me. All I have to worry about is my family's health.
I'm sure that we are in such great health because of where we live. My Graves Disease (thyroid) is closely monitored. Any illness that we get is able to be nipped in the bud before it becomes a major health concern ... thus saving the government a lot of money in the end run.
I heard that Americans are under the impression that Candians hate our health care system. Let me say, it is so not true. I haven't talked to anyone who doesn't like it.
The wait times have been an issue at times and during those times everyone looks south of the border. All I want to say about that is that if Americans had free health care then the wait times south of the border would be far worse than they are here.
Hey ... pretty long-winded for me, eh?
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