The Cost of Not Reforming Health Care Access

The 40% difference in mortality is highly disturbing and demonstrates clearly just how broken the current system is. It also shows how a purely market driven system places a lesser value on the lives of those who cannot afford the insurance costs associated with health care. While choice and personal freedom is important, it should not dictate that the 45 million uninsured Americans are somehow of lesser value than those who can afford insurance.

Thanks for the article Kathy. Listen: people in that 45 million bracket are by no means a fixed group. All it takes for those who think they're a member of a priveledged bunch to slip into the uncovered ranks is one disaster, one accident, one horrible and untimely diagnosis. Wham! Welcome to the ranks.

You'd think they'd want some sort of protection from that..

The thing politicians fail to realize is that even if they come from a state that has a minority supporting the Public Option, once it is implemented, that minority will turn to a majority when neighbor after neighbor, friend after friend begins to tell of the wonders of actually receiving health care free instead of mortgaging the house and sucking their retirement dry in order to pay for Jimmy's football injury or Susie's tonsillectomy. It happens every single day and the ranks of the un and under-insured will grow by the day.

Another problem with our health insurance system is that people will stay in a bad, low paying job and take abuses they otherwise wouldn't in order to keep that health insurance, no matter the quality, which is usually poor and getting worse as big employers such as Target and Walmart continue to cut benefits as costs increase.

This estimate is up from one of 18, 000 four years ago. The report said part of the increase was due to a reduction in the number of free clinics and hospital services for the uninsured and predicted future increases as funding cuts caused by the recession take hold.

It still goes back to cost. Health insurance is not the same as access to health care. It was actually quite rare before World War II, at least in the form that we know today, where covers even routine doctor visits.

Probably, a more honest assessment would be that these people die from lack of access to a family doctor. The problem with the way that it's stated, is that health insurance companies didn't cause the shortage of family doctors, the AMA did. I wish more people understood the influence of this group and their contribution to our current health care mess, by restricting access to health care while keeping costs high.

World War II ? Yikes. Prior to 1980 (!) most hospitals and insurers were nonprofit. It is the for-profit health care model that is new and filled with tragedies. As for "doctor shortages" that is also a feature of limited access to, and high cost of, medical school. There are lots of bright, accomplished young people who want to be doctors, and not for dreams of striking it rich. We can have more doctors any time we want, by increasing the availability and affordability of medical school .

GD, you make too much sense.

The AMA sets the bar up too high, in order to maintain a doctor shortage. They also show, on their own site, how they've influenced the RBRVS, the scale that medicare and medicaid use to determine payments, so that specialists get much more than family doctors, which also created the family doctor shortage.

The "profit based" drivel that is so often repeated doesn't match up to the rest of the world. Most everything in your house was made by profit-driven industry, which works quite well in a competitive environment. It's a nightmare when laws are made that alter and destroy that competition. In this case, McCarran-Ferguson, ERISA preemption, and the tax penalty for purchasing your own insurance have increased costs and reduced the competitive market to about 5% of the population.

Also, if most of the nonprofit care was changed into for-profit care within 20 years, what caused that? Many people can tell you how to fix the car, but few have popped the hood to find the problem.

As for the cost of college, I've seen those rates skyrocket since the student loan program started. Maybe if they tied loan amounts to the expected value of the degree, colleges would have an incentive to lower their costs to make themselves affordable again.

Au contraire, 'professor.' The profit-based model of health care simply doesn't exist in any other advanced nation. In EVERY case, single payer systems cost less and deliver better outcomes. Believe your fantasies if you wish. The proof of over 50 years of global experience is that our system causes more misery, bankruptcy, denial, sickness and death at much higher cost than anywhere else in the modern world.

To the contrary contra-wise, or ... whatever. Many industrial countries have a mix of private and public insurance. You're thinking universal coverage, which is a separate issue, and is also covers more than one area.
Also, you're glossing over a few thousand years of experience before the 1950s.
Again, look under hood personally. Symptoms have causes.

My, we're getting pathetic as well as desperate. "B-b-b-b-but -- we can't afford to do nothing!" Such childish and ignorant wailing is irrelevent (and merits contempt, not respect); obviously we should not stupidly rush to make a bad situation worse. (As the Dims in the House did with climate legislation, already.)

I think people need a more personal approach when it comes to doctors. I know i have a doctor which takes care of my problems(prosolution gel) and he is so nice. He always knows me by name, he's friendly and i gladly attent every meeting.