Health Care Charts ------------>

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[NYC_SKP]

1. First K and R....

Good charts for reference.

Thanks!

:yourock:

[endless october]

2. i've posted this before

but it's still an eye opener :

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5. Dr. John Morley: We need health care reform NOW

Aug 22, 2009

(Life expectancy)

As much as we may find Michael Moore annoying, we need to accept that when he claimed health care outcomes in Cuba and the United States were roughly equivalent, he was right. Life expectancy in both Cuba and the USA was 78 years in 2007. Since 1990, Cubans have, in fact, gained one more year in life expectancy than we did in the USA. They have the same neonatal death rate, at 4 per 1000, as we do. This however compares to Japan at 1 per 1000, Spain at 2 per thousand and Canada, France, the United Kingdom and Italy at 3 per 1000. Cubans spend 7.7% of their gross national product (GNP) on health care and we spend approximately 16%.

The life expectancy in Japan is 5 years longer than ours and they only spend 8.1% of their GNP on health care. Life expectancy is 4 years longer for Australians and Italians, 3 years longer for the French, Spainiards and Canadians and 2 years longer for the British and Germans. When we look at healthy lifespan we do no better. These other countries are healthier for 2 to 6 more years than we are in the United States.

Yes it is true that we have the finest health care system in the world, and the rich from the rest of the world flock to places like the Mayo and Cleveland Clinics for their health care. Even better the top eighth of our population do as well as the wealthy in Japan. Unfortunately this means the rest of us do worse than those “lucky” Cubans.

As we all know nearly 46 million Americans are uninsured. This is not just the poor, in fact most of the poor are covered by Medicaid. The uninsured are potentially you and me; anyone who looses or changes a job may find themselves uninsured or have to pay exorbitant amounts for insurance.

I should point out that in my 32 years of medical practice in the United States, I have never been unable to get appropriate health care paid for by the Veterans Administration, Medicare or Medicaid. On the other hand, I continuouosly struggle and waste my time to get, or fail to get, authorization for appropriate health care from insurance companies for my patients, who at least in my mind seem far more callous and much more interested in making money for their shareholders. Our government has been excellent at managing health care, as have the governments of Canada and many European countries.

full article:

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/fit-bits/health-insurance/2009/08/we-need-health-care-reform-now/

[guruoo]

3. kick, rec, and bookmarked

[DCKit]

4. 360 million people x $3,600 savings = $1.296 trillion into the economy

That's the difference between France and U.S. spending. And that money would be in the hands of consumers, not corporations and wealthy stock holders. Consumers who would spend.

[WeCanWorkItOut]

6. Please don't omit the role of the AMA in helping to make this worse

And the hospitals.

And then there are all the academics, the media,
the so-called public interest groups,and the unions,
who sometimes failed to give proper attention to the problem,
and sometimes have actively contributed to making
it worse. (Example: gene patents owned by universities.)

That's an important difference between us and other countries;
for decades they worked to keep down the costs
of doctors, hospitals, drugs, tests and medical equipment.

We didn't. And now we've suddenly noticed we have a big problem.
And yet we trust our legislators to do a good job in a hurry?

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7. The Max Factor

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8. Lobbying & Public Option

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9. Single Payer