Here’s a blast from the past. This 16-minute video from the early 1990s by Off Center Video features physicians, economists and ordinary Canadians explaining Canada’s universal healthcare system. The presentation is introduced by the late Minnesota Senator, Paul Wellstone. Imagine if every household in America could see this. Share with your family and friends!
Sylvia@californiaonecare.org
It’s a shocking figure, but that’s how much money the U.S. healthcare system wasted in 2009, according to a just released report from the Institute of Medicine. The report said expensive medical tests, administrative costs, medical fraud and poor prevention contributed to the waste.
The wasted money could provide health insurance coverage for more than 150 million workers, according to the report. And 75,000 deaths might have been prevented if states delivered higher-quality care.
The Institute of Medicine report makes plain that our healthcare system is not getting the best bang for the buck. What we are getting is a raw deal. The U.S. is still spending far more than our First World counterparts on health care, and getting worse outcomes. The fact that our country could have covered 150 million people and prevented needless deaths with that $750 billion is a moral outrage. And the report only covers 2009. How much more money have we squandered in the years before or since? There is nothing fiscally or socially responsible in the way America does health care, and the IOM report proves that.
Sylvia@californiaonecare.org
What if every medical office were this candid?
Sylvia@californiaonecare.org
In a throwback to the Victorian era, hard economic times are creating a comeback for debtors’ prisons, despite the fact that they have been ruled unconstitutional. But legal loopholes allow collections agencies to aggressively go after people who owe money. The Associated Press recently reported that an Illinois woman was sent to jail for an outstanding medical bill of $280, even though the bill was sent in error. Here is yet another horrid consequence of not having a universal, public healthcare system in the United States.
In more than one-third of states, people can be sent to jail if they can’t or won’t pay outstanding debts. Though California does place burdensome penalties on some debtors, the state isn’t as extreme as Illinois. As far as I know, there aren’t any cases here in the Golden State of people in jail for medical debt, thank goodness. But the fact that anywhere in this country, people are still being penalized for being poor makes America’s insistence that it is the “greatest country in the world” ring hollow. A truly great country does not put people in jail for debts, medical or otherwise. And a truly great country provides health coverage for all its people, making headlines like “Breast Cancer Survivor Jailed for Unpaid $280 Medical Bill” non-existent.
Sylvia@CaliforniaOneCare.org
