U.S. Health Care Doesn’t Measure Up
Can we please drop all this We’re #1 nonsense when it comes Health Care. Seriously, we have nothing to brag about.
Despite having the most costly health system in the world, the United States consistently underperforms on most dimensions of performance, relative to other countries. This report—an update to two earlier editions—includes data from surveys of patients, as well as information from primary care physicians about their medical practices and views of their countries’ health systems. Compared with five other nations—Australia, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom—the U.S. health care system ranks last or next-to-last on five dimensions of a high performance health system: quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives.
Look at those costs? We’re spending 6,102.00 per capita and we’re not #1 in quality, access, efficiency, equity, and healthy lives? How is that possible? And I would think that Republicans would be all over this obvious bloat and waste instead of making scary noises about rationing – which already occurs in our system – while screaming we’re the best – which we’re obviously not.
Our Health Care System is ridiculously expensive and ineffiecent. It’s focus is not on saving lives, but rather on corporate profits – and it shows.
Tags: Health Care
Our insurance companies are happy though, so try to see the big picture.
I know. I really feel sorry for these guys who are just scraping by.
* Ron Williams – Aetna – Total Compensation: $24,300,112.
* H. Edward Hanway – CIGNA – Total Compensation: $12,236,740.
* Angela Braly – WellPoint – Total Compensation: $9,844,212.
* Dale Wolf – Coventry Health Care – Total Compensation: $9,047,469.
* Michael Neidorff – Centene – Total Compensation: $8,774,483.
* James Carlson – AMERIGROUP – Total Compensation: $5,292,546.
* Michael McCallister – Humana – Total Compensation: $4,764,309.
* Jay Gellert – Health Net – Total Compensation: $4,425,355.
* Richard Barasch – Universal American – Total Compensation: $3,503,702.
* Stephen Hemsley – UnitedHealth Group – Total Compensation: $3,241,042.
Let’s try this: http://delawarerepublican.wordpress.com/2009/06/15/the-health-care-debate-lets-try-this-before-we-do-anything-else/
And those salaries are paid from your premiums.
And your premiums from these for-profit companies are not meant to provide you care as their first priority — it is about transferring as much of the value of that premium to shareholders and these executives.
And for the capitalists among us — this is not the creation of value, it is about the extraction of value. An extraction of value from you — the rate payer.
And this is the system that the Republicans wish to preserve? Yes it is!
JO: Well, those are apt initials, aren’t they? Your “solutions” are very clever — for an eighth-grader. They do nothing to deal with the actual causes of the high cost of health care. Keep your day job.
The Commonwealth Fund isn’t doing too poorly, either….with $754,858,421 in net assets (’08). Not bad for a ‘public interest’ entity.
“There are lies, damned lies, and statistics”…W. Rogers
We don’t have the best outcomes in the world either. Our infant mortality rates are at the lowest end of developed countries and we have a lot of people dying of preventable illnesses. We need to focus more on wellness than on illness.
As far as insurance companies go, screw them. I’m tired of them providing poor service unless you’re not sick. I don’t feel any need to preserve their profits. They’ve had 50 years to figure out how to deliver cost savings in health care and they haven’t been able to do it.
Aren’t net assets different than compensation? It seems to me that assets can be considered the fair value of the entity, so real estate, contracts, cash and office equipment. That stuff can be used to pay for treatment. It is an insurance endeavor.
Now consider the 24M that Pandora’s top guy took in is gone. That is 3% of the value of the Commonwealth fund in just one year. Commonwealth carries their money into the next year.
Also, JO, your suggestions do not attack our 48 million uninsured problem, nor our $6102 cost per capita, nor the administrative and executive pay waste in insurance companies, nor the other deficiencies noted in the report that Pandora cited.
In other words, yours is marginalized incrementalism, typical Repub non-thinking.
You people continue to be totally out of touch, even after Pandora has tried to put you in touch!
How many more years will this induction period have to last for you folks?
The truth – Health Insurance has nothing to do with Health Care. In fact, they are opposing forces.
Agreed pandora and Geezer. Part of the conversation is focused on the wrong issue – insurance. It should be focused on health and how do we make sure everyone has access to care.
If a government-run fund is making money on healthcare, isn’t that a good thing? That means it’s paying for itself.
My commentary was part one of a multi-part series.
I agree that part one does not address the uninsured, but it does address costs and efficiency (one of the items on the scorecard).
Implementing digitized medicine records reduces human errors, and the higher costs to address those errors. The $6,102 in per capita health care c0sts are attributed to errors made by medical staff.
Also by digitizing medical records and share them between your primary care doctors and specialists, your medical history is transparent. Transpareny leads to better care (quality care).
Tort reform, and reasonable caps on medical lawsuits are also necessary to driving down those cost of health care premiums.
JO, I’m not saying that I object to your first two ideas. On tort reform, I’d have to see more.
It just isn’t close to enough to address current needs.
Btw, your second suggestion is already part of the Obama stimulus funding.
“Tort reform” has for many years been the conservative payback to trial lawyers for funding Democrats. Conservatives aren’t serious about it or they’d stop floating their $250,000 cap figure — a figure they haven’t updated in about 20 years — as a one-size-fits-all answer.
Yes, doctors pay outlandish sums for malpractice insurance. There are many other solutions than tort reform. But only tort reform offers a way to hobble a constituency that supports Democrats.
Not addressing affects access. Read this article from a doctor in NH:
http://www.concordmonitor.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080313/OPINION/803130304&template=page2
JO, I read it. The question in my mind is just how big a problem is this?
A few anecdotal cases of tort abuse do not necessarily add up to a significant problem overall.
I could be wrong, but I have the feeling that this is a red herring.
Moreover, a cap of $250k, as your citation suggests, hardly seems enough, based on some of the medical errors I’ve read about over the years.
As always a few bombs which miss the target by a mile.
Yes, we can do Universal Coverage but we can’t adhere to the old ways. It has to be patient centered, hassle free , suited to your individual situation and not be tied to employment.
Our health care is indeed #1. It is too bad your hatred for some individuals in the system bias your words.
Stand by for the next health care video. It will talk about Health Care courts which will solve the lottery luck of malpractice. There is a huge difference between being made whole and pintive damages.
Full disclosure, my oldest son is a Medical Doctor at Yale University. Our Doctors are the best.
Mike Protack