November 1, 2007

Editorial

America’s Lagging Health Care System

Americans are increasingly frustrated about the subpar performance of this country’s fragmented health care system, and with good reason. A new survey of patients in seven industrialized nations underscores just how badly sick Americans fare compared with patients in other nations. One-third of the American respondents felt their system is so dysfunctional that it needs to be rebuilt completely — the highest rate in any country surveyed. The system was given poor scores both by low-income, uninsured patients and by many higher-income patients.

. . . Given the large number of people uninsured or poorly insured in this country, it was no surprise that Americans were the most likely to go without care because of costs. Fully 37 percent of the American respondents said that they chose not to visit a doctor when sick, skipped a recommended test or treatment or failed to fill a prescription in the past year because of the cost — well above the rates in other countries.

--full article--

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It's not George Bush's fault, because it's a 50-yr problem in the making, but private industry is good at some things and lousy at others. Government is good at very few things and lousy at most.

The agony without any corresponding ecstasy, is that we keep insisting private industry into governmental roles they fail at with disastrous result.

• Military roles

• Nation-building

• Amtrak

• and yes, Health Care

We will have single-payer universal medical care because it is too expensive to continue along the profits-littered road that scare-mongers chose for us. Say the word, let it roll over your tongue, become comfortable with it . . . . . . socialized (there, I said it) medicine.

* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Health Care, check out Opinion-Columns.com