Solving the American Health Care Crisis

SOLVING THE AMERICAN HEALTH CARE CRISIS MONDAY, APRIL 25, 2011 In America today, it seems that we have a health care crisis where millions of people are either under-insured or have no coverage at all. Residents in the United States seem to have a lower life expectancy along with higher rates of heart disease, cancer and infant mortality rates. Compared with other rich, industrialized countries, the U. S. has a fragmented health care system. With 47 million people under-insured and millions more with no coverage at all, the cost of health care is rising twice as fast than the current economic rate. Even major companies and municipal governments are passing off on the cost of health care to its employees. And small businesses cannot even afford to provide health care coverage to their employees. While more major companies and city governments are not being able to set aside enough money to provide health care coverage, more and more are shifting their manufacturing to other countries because they are not able to meet the needs of their employees. Also on the rise in health care coverage, is the leading cause of rising bankruptcies for both individuals and companies; not to mention the rising cost of prescription drugs is rising faster than the cost of health care. An exorbitant amount of paperwork has increased in the daily tasks of health care than in the last twenty years. Half of any spending on health care in the U. S. is publicly funded by federal, state, and county governments which adds even more to the amount of paperwork. Medicare Part D is also a complex problem which adds to the federal budget deficit. One problem is that the federal government is prohibited from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies to get cheaper prices on prescription drugs, while the Veteran's Administration can. There is a ban on imported prescription drugs from Canada, which is imposed by the Department of Human Health Service, unless it is approved by the FDA. There is also a coverage gap, or "doughnut hole", in prescription coverage. Prescription drug advertisements in the American market have risen at a phenomenal rate, due to major drug companies that get an easy ride from the media for their absurd advertisements because it is difficult to criticize the companies for bringing substantial news. Lobbyists have an influence on legislators because there is at least two lobbyists for every legislator in Washington. Since 2000, employees of federal, state and county governments have seen health care costs rise to the double digits. There are over 1500 health insurers who handle the health insurance market and insurance policies are generally written by corporate lawyers that is not easily understandable by the average individual. Due to the fear of being sued, doctors are practicing "defensive medicine" by ordering excessive tests, avoiding risky procedures, and referring patients to see other expert doctors. All this leads to the high cost of health care, which can lead to too many groundless lawsuits. Although America has the finest hospitals in the world, a high quality research, and competent and highly skilled doctors and nurses, over 100,000 people still die each year from mistakes caused by hospital staff workers. Due to a fragmented health care system and an inefficient, beaucratically wasteful system that excludes nearly 47 million uninsured people, there are many myths and misconceptions about the health care crisis. Some of these are: America has the best health care system in the world, socialized medicine is bad, anyone in America has access to health care by going to the emergency room, many people come to the U. S. for health care, many Americans will not accept health care rationing as many have in other countries, and immigrants (legal and illegal) are crowding emergency rooms which increase the cost of health care for everyone in America. There are three possibilities that a universal health care system can be based on. The first is that the system is privately funded. This is not good option because the health care system would become money driven with rising health care costs. The second and third, a system that is a combination of publicly and privately funded, and a system that is publicly funded are good options provided that the two systems are fragmented and includes everyone in the population of America. The President and Congress could set up a commission of about ten people of integrity and character and give them a clear mandate that would include existing problems and consider the following issues: the health care system needs to be as simple as possible and include all people in America and cater to the patients’ needs; it should be based on need rather than on ability to pay, but have limits as to what "basic health" covers; they should study the health care systems of other countries and come up with a plan that would benefit America; they should ask the question ‘why Americans spend almost 40-50% per person on health care than other countries and get less in return; they should study the viability of the health care system that is either privately or publicly funded or solely privately funded; they should consider a electronic medical card for every citizen in America that would include their entire medical history since birth (this would prevent many malpractice suits from reducing the cost of health care); and there should be an emphasis on disease prevention as the highest priority to study by commission members. These could be steps to regulating the cost of health care: subsidize the cost of health care for those who cannot afford it, i.e., the elderly, the sick and those in a vulnerable groups; eliminate fragmented entitlement groups, i.e., Medicare, Medicaid, Veteran's Administration, and others financed and managed by federal and state governments; the role of private insurance companies should be restricted with limited policies and deductibles and they should not be allowed to pick and choose their clients; solutions should restrict frivolous lawsuits; controls should be placed on the pricing of prescription drugs and aggressive advertising by pharmaceutical companies. RESOURCES Solving the American Health Care Crisis www.answerstohealthcare.com/articles/american-healthcare