CRITICAL CONDITION – the state of healthcare in the United States
I based this article on a documentary titled Critical Condition that was made in 2008, so it's slightly dated, but the facts up to 2008 are correct. Since it is now 2015, 7 years later, I am sure it's only gotten worse, although with the ACA we should see a drop in those statistics as to the number of people without insurance, unless of course the Republicans successfully repeal the entire healthcare law, in which case they will have a huge backlash, but it's highly unlikely they have thought that far into the future, something they just don't do. They react with little forethought of the impact of their decisions on the people of this country. I personally do not believe that we will see any significant drop in the costs of healthcare in the US until we eliminate the profit motives and reign in the pharmaceutical giants. When Medicare Part D was voted into law and enacted in 2006 the Republicans refused to allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices like the VA does, so my feeling is that this law was enacted not out of the goodness of the GOP hearts but on behalf of the pharmaceutical industry. Republicans are very good at crafting legislation that appears on it's surface to be something that will benefit most of us out here, but in reality it only exists to serve a corporation.
The costs of healthcare in the United States are a disgrace. Since 1980, a few years after the healthcare industry went from a non profit business to a for profit business, costs soared and we all heard about it on the news, but never why it increased faster than the rate of inflation. Profits.
Americans uninsured:
1980 1990 2000 2012
26 M 34 M 39M 47 M
Rising costs:
1970 1980 1990 2000 2006
$75B $254B $714B $1.4T $2.1T
The United States is the only major industrial nation on the planet without national healthcare.
We rank 15th in preventable deaths
24th in life expectancy, 27th in infant mortality and it costs us 50% more than countries with a national healthcare system. Hospitals charge uninsured patients 2 ½ times more than those with insurance. And now that we have some semblance of a national healthcare system, we have a political party who objects to it even though it is based on a plan designed by a Conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation. Apparently they dislike it because it came into being during a Democratic Presidency and not because they intensely dislike everything about the law. Sure there are flaws, as with anything new, but Congress could fix those flaws and improve it, but they refuse. They never fix anything, they just repeal it and promise to replace it with ????? Well, we’ll get back to you on that.
1:05 PM PT: Leading up to 2010 the number of uninsured went up in large part due to a decrease in employers offering healthcare to workers and/or employees losing their jobs. The ACA provides health insurance regardless of whether or not someone is employed. In a sense, it is a health care coverage that is portable and does not rely on employment. 41,000 were still without coverage in 2013. 61% of adults said in 2013 that they were uninsured due to lack of affordability. Most of the uninsured are in low-income working families. In 2013, nearly 8 in 10 were in a family with a worker, and nearly 6 in 10 have family income below 200% of poverty. Reflecting the more limited availability of public coverage, adults have been more likely to be uninsured than children. People of color are at higher risk of being uninsured than non-Hispanic Whites.
People without insurance coverage have worse access to care than people who are insured. Almost a third of uninsured adults in 2013 (30%) went without needed medical care due to cost. Studies repeatedly demonstrate that the uninsured are less likely than those with insurance to receive preventive care and services for major health conditions and chronic diseases.
The uninsured often face unaffordable medical bills when they do seek care. In 2013, nearly 40% of uninsured adults said they had outstanding medical bills, and a fifth said they had medical bills that caused serious financial strain. These bills can quickly translate into medical debt since most of the uninsured have low or moderate incomes and have little, if any, savings.