Problems In the U.S. Health Care System - 7:31 PM, 9/1/2009 |
U.S. HEALTH CARE SYSTEM RANKS 37TH IN THE WORLD Bernard Pyron "But tell me, this physician of whom you were just speaking, is he an earner of fees, or a healer of the sick?" Plato, The Republic. "And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be healed by any." Luke 8: 43 The doctors got all the money this woman had, but they did not heal her. It is the link at the top which leads to the web site with the information shown below that link. http://www.newsday.com/news/ A 2007 report by the Commonwealth Fund campared health care in the United States, England, Canada, Germany, Australia and New Zealand. The United States health care system ranked last. Ken Thorpe, professor of health care policy at Emory University, says "We...have 46 million people who are uninsured, and that raises a whole host of health and financial issues." http://www.who.int/inf-pr- The World Health Organization did an analysis of the world's health systems by studying 191 countries. This study ranked the French health care system as the best, followed in order by Italy, Spain, Oman, Austria and Japan. The United States health care system was found to be the most expensive in the world. But the United States health care system was ranked 37th out of 191 nations. Life expectancy was used as one measure of how well a nation's health care system contributed to good health. Compared to other industrialized nations, the United States health care system does not contribute very well to good health in this country.. http://ezinearticles.com/? The Commonwealth Fund reports that Americans receive the poorest quality of health care, yet pay the most for it out of the six top industrialized nations. Their study was based on quality, access, efficiency, equity and outcome measures of health care. Germany had the top rank, followed in turn by England, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. The report found that Texas ranks at the bottom of the United States in number of people who have no health insurance, at just over twenty five percent being uninsured. The U.S. had the highest infant mortality rate of all six industrialized nations. http://www.nlm.nih.gov/ There are large differences in the quality of health care between different regions in the United States. The indicator, premature death rate before age 75 from preventable causes, shows a wide range between different states in the U.S. The lowest premature death rate are found in Minnesota, Utah, Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska. The states with the highest premature death rates are Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Tennessee. In the five states with the lowest premature death rates the average rate was 74.1 per 100,000 people. But in the five states with the highest premature death rates it was 141.7 per 100,000 people. This report ranked states on 32 indicators in five groups of indicators: access to health care, quality of care, costs of care, equity, and "ability to live long and healthy lives." States in the Northeast and in the Upper Midwest ranked the highest in health care indicators. States with the poorest health care, according to these indicators, were in the South. In the five top states for health care ninety percent of adults have health care insurance. These states are Hawaii, Iowa, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine. In the five lowest ranked states 70 to 78 percent of the adults are insured. These states with the worst health care systems are Nevada, Arkansas, Texas, Mississippi and Oklahoma. The conclusion is that competence and cost-effectiveness of health care systems is very different in different regions of the United States. http://www.iht.com/articles/ The people in the United States spend more on health care than all other 190 nations in this study. But the U.S. ranks 37th in effectiveness of its health care system. http://www.commondreams.org/ A study funded by the Commonwealth Fund found that one-third of all United States Health Care System patients reported experiencing medical mistakes, medicatis, or inaccurate or delayed lab results. The U.S . has thew highest medical problem rate of any nation studied. http://www.commondreams.org/ People in forty one nations are now living longer than Americans on the average. The web site above says "For decades the United States has been slipping in rankings of life expectancy, as other countries improve health care, nutrition and lifestyles. Countries that surpass the United States include Japan, most of Europe, as well as Jordan, Guam and the Cayman islands." "Something's wrong here when one of the richest countries in the world, the one that spends the most on health care, is not able to keep up with other countries," said Christopher Murray, head of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. "A baby born in the U.S. in 2004 is expected to live an average of 77.9 years. That ranks 42nd down from 11th two decades earlier according to international numbers provided by the Census Bureau and domestic numbers from the National Center for health Statistics." "A relatively high percentage of babies born in the U.S. die before their first birthday,. compared with other industrialized nations." "Andorra, a tiny country between France and Spain, had the longest life expectancy, at 83.5 years, according to the Census Bureau. It was followed by Japan, Macao, San Marino and Singapore." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ In 2004 per capita spending for medical services in the U.S.was more than double that in Canada. People in the United States spent $6,096, on the average, but in Canada they spent $3,038. Average income for physicians in the United States in 1996 was nearly twice that for doctors in Canada. But life expectancy in 2006 was about two and a half years longer in Canada than in the United States. These statistics say that cost-effectiveness of medical care in the United States is lower than that in Canada. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/ But the Japanese health care system appears to be even higher in cost-effectiveness than that of Canada. The Japanese have the best longevity rate, at least of all the industrialized nations, with relatively .low health care costs. Note: There is much more on this topic, especially on the problem of the exclusive use of the allopathic medical model within a system concerned mainly with making money. The allopathic medical model is the use only of prescription drugs made by the giant drug corporations and surgery. Problems With Effectiveness of U.S. Health Care In health care, as in many other services, there is effectiveness and then there is cost. I really doubt that the federales in this country are going to do anything to improve the effectiveness of our health care system. They may extend federal funding to those without health care insurance which will be paid by taxpayers, which is part of cost rather than effectiveness. Many people have had personal experiences with ineffective health care for themselves, relatives or friends. We need to bring these negative experiences with doctors, hospitals, etc to public attention in a way that has not been done before. The Internet is one way to do this. Set up blogs to tell readers about procedures done by doctors which did not help a person, or which had some harmful effects. Try to get the attention of the mainstream media on this issue. There are professionals who can do more to bring awareness of ineffective and/or harmful medical procedures to the attention of the public. Naturopathic Physicians, Chiropractors and nutritionists have done some work in bringing to the public an awareness that medical doctors often mess up or that their standard procedures don't work or are harmful. Ph.D. physiologists are in a good position to turn their knowledge to use in a criticism of the medical profession, though they are tied down in the universities by their research being funded by drug corporations and institutions who don't have an interest in medical criticism. Finally, clinical and experimental psychologists could try to use their training to turn the cold fishy eye upon the behavior of doctors - if the doctors will let them do it. I am not aware of any studies of doctors by psychologists. Medical doctors and other workers in the money making health care system, such as hospital administrators, might be led by public and expert professional criticism of their system to improve procedures in some parts of the country. After all, their purpose is to make money, and if the public is demanding a better health care system, some of them might try to make it better. I wonder though if public opinion is not opposed in part to public criticism of the health care system. Pride in the U.S. may prevent many from accepting the idea that our health care system is flawed and that many medical procedures are ineffective and/or harmful. Its not hard to come up with chronic moral and effectiveness problems where doctors are concerned. Few doctors oppose the practice of abortion practiced by their doctor peers. There is the cancer scam where doctors for years and years have been using chemotherapy and radiation for cancer which almost never really works and which weakens the person's body and hastens death in some cases. Some recent novels have presented people of courage who have cancer but refuse to be subjected to chemotherapy or radiation and defy the doctors to go off and live their lives without this questionable treatment. Where the River Ends - A Novel by Author Charles Martin - is about a gifted woman who develops cancer, goes through chemotherapy, which does not cure her cancer and weakens her until finally she and her husband flee the doctors and decide to paddle the entire length of the St. Mary's river in northern Florida and Georgia. She dies as they enter the Atlantic ocean. Vaccines are not what the doctors claim them to be. For many years they have been putting stuff into vaccines that is harmful, such as mercury. Vaccines may be harmful in other ways and may not prevent the diseases they are claimed to prevent. There are professionals critical of vaccines who are qualified to do so, but public opinion is still on the side of the idea that vaccines prevent disease and are not harmful to the body. “The medical authorities keep lying. Vaccination has been a disaster on the immune system. It actually causes a lot of illnesses. We are changing our genetic code through vaccination."” says Guylaine Lanctot M.D. Canadian author of the best-seller ‘Medical Mafia’. It will be interesting to see - if the swine flu vaccine is made mandatory - whether the authorities will allow the usual religious exemption from compelled medical procedures. Leviticus 17: 11 says "For the life of the flesh is in the blood..." And I Corinthians 3: 26-17 says "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are." The bodies of Christians are the temple of God.. Injecting vaccines into the bloodstream of Christians is contamination of the blood and desecration of the temple of God.. Some say the churches will be one place where the swine flu vaccine will be given to people. It will also be interesting to see if the churches do give the swine flu vaccine, so contiminating the blood of Christians who are the temple of God according to Paul. |
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