The links I provided below didn’t print off correctly.  Hopefully these will:

http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 12968734_1_1_1_1,00.html

and

http://www.oecd.org/document/46/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 34971438_1_1_1_1,00.html

Corrected links:

http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 12968734_1_1_1_1,00.html

and

http://www.oecd.org/document/46/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 34971438_1_1_1_1,00.html

For data comparison of America’s health care with other Western countries, please see:

http://www.oecd.org/document/30/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 12968734_1_1_1_1,00.html

“The most comprehensive source of comparable statistics on health and health systems across OECD countries. It is an essential tool for health researchers and policy advisors in governments, the private sector and the academic community, to carry out comparative analyses and draw lessons from international comparisons of diverse health care systems.”

Specific highlights for each country, including America, are found here:

http://www.oecd.org/document/46/0,3343,en_2825_495642_ 34971438_1_1_1_1,00.html

Why should Americans continue to support private insurance?  You get what you pay for.  What has our money gotten us?

America ranks less in infant mortality, longevity, and disease prevention, to name just some health care markers, than other Western countries. Yet America alone spends more of our Gross Domestic Product on medical care than other countries do. Countries which not only outdo us, but do so with government run systems to boot.

For several years my late husband and I lived and worked in London. Our medical care came from the publicy funded health care system (NHS TRUST) of the United Kingdom, for which we paid taxes out of our salaries. 

We never paid any money out of pocket for doctor’s visits.  Nor money out of pocket for immunizations. Nor for vaccinations.  And when my husband sustained an injury requiring ambulance service, ICU care, and extensive hospitalization, we never received any medical bill whatsoever.  A 30 day prescription cost about 9 dollars.

‘Voice of Truth’ speaks like an apologist for the profiteering insurance industry and is another anonymous person making statements with no basis in fact.  For more about the case for universal, publicly funded health care, please see New Hampshire Debates section:

http://www.truthdig.com/avbooth/item/20070928_new_hamp shire_debate/

particle61

The same people that are taking away our other rights are the ones that disagree that health care should be a human right.

“Selfish and bigoted Americans will never agree that health care is a human right

And for those who either are paid by the insurance/pharma industry or scared by these same ‘it’s mine now’ brutes, your time is over...please join the makers of slide-rules and pony express riders and disappear as we make you and your horrible industry irrelevant.”

Great post by the way, the paragraph above about the insurance/pharma industry, going the way of the pony express hits home, just consider NAFTA and all the jobs out sourced and industry jobs that were forced out of the USA by the same people who are trying to keep status quo, their status quo.  As usual just follow the money.  The grand plan to eliminate our borders, and dismantle the middle class.

Poor Jeanine, she sees the evil bogeyman everywhere.  To set the record straight, I am not a corporate shill.  I did, in fact, live in the UK from 2002-2006, as mentioned in one of the my other posts, and had extensive experience with the NHS there.  Its awful, and anyone in the UK will tell you the same thing.  Its funny that you state you only want to deal with facts, yet your entire argument on the merits of the European model is hearsay (that means second hand information).  I, on the other hand, have actually lived through it.  Who’s comments are more relevant??

And Louise, I am sorry to hear what you went through with your child, as well as your friend.  I myself have 4 children, and one of them was born with a heart defect, necessitating open heart surgery at 8 weeks old.  I consider us very lucky, not the least of which is that, living in Atlanta, we have access to Emory’s Children’s Hospital, one of the best in the world.  I would never have hoped for my daughter to live had we been in the UK then.

I also agree with you (Louise) on much of what you state, but I don’t see how a single-payer national health system alleviates that.  The drugs that kids are given today are really the result of parents not wanting to put up with unruly kids and be actual parents.  Everyone wants the quick solution.  Look at the rise in antibiotic resistant infectious diseases.  Again, people want a quick fix to their cold, get anti-biotics over-prescribed, and then don’t follow the course of medication.  Hence, the only virus / bacteria that live are the strong ones.

So you knew my great grandfather as well!

#101280 by voice of truth on 9/19 at 5:37 am
“ ... infant mortality was at levels we see in today’s third world countries, and it was very common for families to have lost at least one child.”

You speak of an era that pre-dates my memory. Known as the “Gilded Era” when the robber barons ruled, and yes infant mortalities were high among the working class. Now, we see their descendents pushing us back more than a hundred years to that very unpleasant period in our nations history. The period that eventually led to the Great Depression.
And once again, infant mortality is on the rise.

It must be remembered the numbers that comprise infant mortality also include the numbers of children who die in the first year of life, and there is a disparity in those numbers between the races, and between the working poor and the shrinking middle class.

Interesting that you should mention Polio as rampant.
One of my children had polio.

It was out there, highly contagious, but rampant? The year my child had Polio was a bad year. About 350 cases in our area, with a population of about 75,000.

I was thrilled when the Salk vaccine came out, then went on to see a friends child get polio from the live vaccine 10 years later.

We were lucky. After two years of therapy my child was fully recovered, with no signs of paralysis left.
My friend wasn’t so lucky. Her daughter was condemned to a life-time in leg braces.

Lets look at today.
One in 94 male children are diagnosed with autism! Now THAT is rampant! We are talking about brain damage here! Finally scientists are starting to seriously study the link between autism and the measles vaccine!

What about asthma?
When my child had Polio asthma afflicted perhaps one child in a thousand. Today, asthma is affecting up to one in four urban children! Asthma can be triggered by allergens, including drugs. The treatment of choice is ... drugs!

Then there’s our “fat” epidemic. How much of that is the direct result of foods laced with drugs?

When we admitted our child to the hospital, no one asked, or cared whether or not we had insurance. The family doctor was there checking on him several times a day, even though his office was far away. He was given 24/7 care by a dedicated hospital staff, until finally, after two and a half weeks his fever broke.

When we took him home, again no one asked, or cared whether or not we had insurance. They were far to busy teaching us how to care for him in the following weeks, perhaps months until he was fully recovered. Arrangements were made to make monthly payments [we chose not to call on the Infantile Paralysis Association, feeling there were many who really did need financial help] Perhaps a choice that we would not have been allowed to make in today’s world of health care.

The hospital referred us to a pediatrician who was one of the best in treating children recovering from Polio. Again, he didn’t ask, or care whether or not we had insurance. He simply set about getting us on a regimen of diet and therapy for our child.

Somewhere along the way, we arranged to make monthly payments, and two years later my child was fully recovered.

And you know what? Not once in that whole period was my child prescribed a drug!

The total bill, hospital, doctor, and therapy came to less than $3000.00. [we had it paid in five years] Granted a whole years income, but in today’s world the yearly income can be exceeded in the first few days of emergency care! The insurance coverage wiped out in a week!

My Childs illness pre-dated $00.25 per gallon gas. I think that came quite some time after the Salk vaccine. We had an old man in town who coasted everywhere [maybe it was your great grandfather] only I think it was because he couldn’t see ten feet in front of him.

We’re 35th in the world in the quality of our health care - so much for the argument that our system provides tip-top medical care. 

A huge study done a few years ago determined that France’s single-payer health care system - works like Social Security - provided the best care for the least amount of money per person.

For all on this site who argue that the insurance business doesn’t belong in the health care business I heartily agree.  It was a mega-profit business prior to entering the health care business, it will be when it leaves.

Oh, to pine for that long ago world....  When gas was $0.25 per gallon, and my great grandfather would turn off the car and coast down hills to save.

Oh yeah, and childhood diseases like polio were rampant, infant mortality was at levels we see in today’s third world countries, and it was very common for families to have lost at least one child.

I also remember the first HMO’s, which were expensive, but you could get everything done for free!  Face it, this has never been about insurance companies, or access to health care.  This issue has always been about people wanting SOMEONE ELSE TO PAY THEIR HEALTH BILLS.

So, if 1 million people join the rolls of “uninsured” every year, you automatically assume that no one ever leaves that state?  That’s pretty myopic.

Once upon a time, in a land far away, a parent could call the doctor and actually get the doctor on the phone. In that long gone fantasy land, the doctor would drop by the house on his way home, so you wouldn’t have to take a sick child into his office.

That far away place called health care for all was there if you could come up with twenty bucks. Or maybe a couple of hundred if your child was hospitalized with pneumonia. Or you had a baby.

Shots were a few bucks, not mandatory and didn’t give your kids autism, or other forms of brain damage.

Back then in the gone forever world of honest doctors dedicated to treating the sick and injured, they would try to diagnose the cause rather than get you or your kid hooked on drugs. And gosh you just loved ‘em, because if you didn’t have the money they would take payments, or yard work.

Cancer was so rare, it was a wonder, even though everybody smoked and pollution was everywhere.
Back in that long lost once upon a time world, cancer wasn’t the big profit making industry it is today.

But that world that I remember so well is gone forever. Kidnapped, assaulted, raped and destroyed!
By big pharma and their partner in crime, the insurance industry.

The day they took over the health care industry was the beginning of the end of decent health care for all.

You see, they exist to feed corporate power and prophet and the do-nothing investors who expect their piece of your pie.

How about that? Live or die, sick or well, They really don’t care, as long as your dollars line their pockets.

Of course Hillary cant know any of that. She’s to young.

Like most [don’t bother me with the facts] politicians she only knows the here and now and what rubs up with money.

And like Obama and Edwards, giving even more power to the power brokers appeals so much more than giving medicine back to the medical practitioners. That would require an honest accounting. And maybe the money would be cut off, and we cant have that.

You and I can get sick and die, but the money is eternal.

That wasn’t John Butterfield from RI, is it?

#101105 by Sharon Ash on 9/18 at 10:36 am
(Unregistered commenter)

So, of all the comments on here, how many of you have actually read Hillary’s plan?  There was about 12 pages of it that I printed off and read, and just like the health care crisis we face in this country is complicated, so are the solutions.  But the plan which Hillary has proposed, and which I have actually read, and I am guessing the writer of this article has also, actually read, is a very good start to addressing the problems without turning it into another big, inefficient, government program.  I have started to worry about some of you on the left, as you are beginning to sound very, very shrill.  As the old saying goes, “You’d bitch if you were hung with a new rope.”

===============================================
No, solutions do not need to be complicated. One of the biggest problems with the existing health care “system” is that it is too complex. It can and should be simplified. It is only complex when privatized with insurance plans who use complicated ways of gauging a return on your premium dollars.

I haven’t read Hillary’s plan. But from what she has said it requires that no one be exempt from getting insurance - that does not mean that people get the coverage needed. If you saw Sicko you’ll note that it focused not on the uninsured but the underinsured.

Private insurance is a fraud. There is no need to have a profit driving our health care. What’s more our delivery outcomes are some of the worst - Hillary’s insurance plan for all will not solve that critical issue.

Reading her “plan” is not a way to understanding the problem. It’s vital to first understand our health care system in its entirety, determine what we need and forget about the labels - you’ll find that a modified simple single payer system brings efficiencies and reduces costs while allowing for transparency and improved outcomes.

Dennis Kucinich for president.

Why is anyone even talking about Hillary?

Dennis Kucinich for president.

by the way, those were direct quotes from Empress Hillary Rodham

“At this point, we don’t have anything punitive that we have proposed,”

“you have to show proof to your employer that you’re insured as a part of the job interview — like when your kid goes to school and has to show proof of vaccination,” but said such details would be worked out through negotiations with Congress.

Holy crap, are you kidding me?!?!?!?!

Well Sharon, I have read it also.  Government mandate that I MUST have health insurance???  Why?  And what happens if I don’t??  Will I go to jail because I don’t have / want it??

Many, many of the so-called 41 million people without health insurance today choose not to have it.  Many make the economic decision that they would rather pay their own bills than pay for higher cost insurance.

Funny how libs are always wanting government to force people to do what they believe in, but go ballistic when they think government is forcing them to do something they don’t.  What a bag of hypocrites.

Its also funny that the 40 million number has not changed since the first go round of Hillarycare, in 1992.  Therefore, though the population has increased from 220million to 300million (36%), the amount of uninsured people is flat.  HELLO McFLY.  Does that not tell you anything????

O.K.  I’ll change my mind about insuring every American using the insurance companies as a go between the taxpayer and the health care provider.  Hell, I’ll even allow you to go ahead and privatize (corporatize) the rest of Medicare so long as you can guarantee me one thing.  The one stipulation I have is that a corporate program will not cost the taxpayers one dime more than a Government run expansion of Medicare to all citizens would cost to administer.  Can you promise that or will it cost the taxpayers 30-40% more just so that insurance companies can act as a go between to manage the paperwork?

Leefeller

I lived in the UK for 5 years.  Nationalized Healthcare, and it sucks.  It is not called the National Health System for nothing.  And it is not “free” as many would call it.  The payroll taxes to pay for this “free” service are astronomical.  Also, anyone who can (i.e., everyone with a job) pays for additional private insurance.

When I needed a test for a potentially very serious issue, the doctor gave me a date 2 months in the future.  When I spoke the two magic words “private insurance”, I was scheduled for the next day.

Again I will say, everyone in the US already has health care as a “basic thing”.  What they don’t have, and apparantly what you want them to have, is someone to pay their healthcare bills, which is not the same thing.

And I wish I had a convertible Mercedes! I’d much rather have that than have to pay through the nose for someone else’s health bills.

Voice of Truth,

Are you serious?
You mentioned that you had lived in a county with national health care, which country? 

Comparing life and death of health care to as you said:

“Well guess what, I have a problem paying for a new Mercedes convertible.” you went on to say should the government pay for that too?

All people in our county should have some basic things, and one is health care. In your case it might be a Mercedes convertible.

You are all missing the point.  This is nothing more than Hillary’s latest attempt to gain even more control over what average Americans do.

There is NO PROBLEM with healthcare.  We have the best health care in the world, and EVERYONE has access to it.  There IS a problem with people wanting to pay for their healthcare.  Well guess what, I have a problem paying for a new Mercedes convertible.  Should the government get you to pay for my car as well?

And what is the difference between an insurance company making a profit on your healthcare or a doctor making a profit on your healthcare??  Both are providing a service.  Why do most of the socialists on this site think profit is a four letter word (literaly and figuratively, I think).

Finally, to Jeanine, “we” are not “demanding single payer medicare for all”.  Only a fool would do that.  I have lived in a country with that, and the health CARE is horrible, expensive, and very hard to access.  Hard, that is, for those who don’t have additional private insurance which, of course, is paid through those evil health insurance companies.  Grow up and enter the world.

I will not support any candidate who proposes Universal coverage that sends even ONE DOLLAR to the Health Insurance industry.  Tax payer dollars must go directly to the health care providers not the middlemen.

Health Care for all in the form of an individually FORCED expenditure to health insurance companies?  To Hades with that you corporate shills.  It is the uneccesary, unregulated expenditures to health insurance companies like HMOs that have kept American’s from getting affordeable healthcare to begin with.  Her plan is to throw more money into this corrupt system?  Her plan is to FORCE every citizen to buy unaffordeable insurance… to give their hard earned money to these companies who have made a killing from fleecing Amerians by denying to pay for services.  Are you kidding?  How dare you!?  It’s time to cut out the middleman!  Medicare for all.  Government bargaining on behalf of the people is the only path to affordeable health care.

No plan will work until “profit” driven insurance companies are gone.  Why can’t we have tax payer supported healthcare that is affordable for everyone and paid for by everyone.  “For Profit” is the key problem here....

What a shilling crap article for Hillary, yet another imperialist, corporate swine who wants to siphon public funds to bloat the insurance and pharma industries.

“Political ju-jitsu”???

Pah .. lease .. that was really, really, bad.

This article does not say anything new, nothing at all.  It does provides insight into what we can expect from Hillary, absolutely nothing new.  Hillary is Bush Lite, her political promises are carried in manure spreaders. Hillary offers us Business as usual, I say it again, we are doomed to status quo. 

The Democrats have shown their hand, they have become Neocon lite?

Congress just like this article, provides no substance for the American people.

Over the weekend,Tiger Woods won over a million dollars for a few days of golf. Federal Express spent millions on an advertising gimmick sponsoring this “event” called the FedEx cup. Alex Rodriguez signed a contract for 250 million dollars because he’s good at a kid’s game. Britney Spears and other “divas” make millions because they can shake their rumps better than 42nd street hookers. This country seems to have no problem enriching mediocrities for meaningless trivialities. And yet, universal healthcare and public education catch hell because of their socialist tendencies? Has the USA gone mad?

What kind of slop article is this? I can’t believe this garbage is next to the most recent Chris Hedges article?

“this year’s most daring act of political jujitsu”

Is truthdig paying the author, or the Democratic Party? This is about the exciting Horse-race of the “Big 3!” Democratic candidates - it’s has no facts in it… I mean read it again… it actually has NO FACTS ABOUT HEALTHCARE IN IT…

This website is turning into a joke, zmag.org actually has some real content.

I wonder if this will be cozy uniting the Insurance industry to another Plan D drug program to richen the coffers of Insurance treasuries?