[Vision2020] Examples Debunk Health Care Myths

[keely emerinemix]

Thanks, Tom, for this valuable and important information.  

Universal care NOW!!!!

Keely
www.keely-prevailingwinds.com




> Date: Sun, 7 Mar 2010 13:21:02 -0800
> From: thansen at moscow.com
> To: vision2020 at moscow.com
> Subject: [Vision2020] Examples Debunk Health Care Myths
> 
> Courtesy of today's (March 7, 2010) Spokesman-Review and Trudy Rubin.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> 
> Examples debunk health care myths
> Trudy Rubin, The Spokesman-Review
> 
> One of the most bewildering aspects of the current health care debate is
> the failure to learn key lessons from health systems abroad.
> 
> Conservative talk show hosts decry the alleged evils of “socialized
> medicine” in countries with universal health coverage; they warn grimly of
> rationed health care. Yet there’s nary a peep from Rush Limbaugh or Glenn
> Beck – let alone Congress – about countries such as Germany, France,
> Switzerland, or Japan, where coverage is universal, affordable, and top
> quality, and patients see private doctors with little or no waiting.
> 
> And, oh yes, their health costs are a fraction of our bloated numbers: The
> French spend 10 percent of GDP on health care, the Germans 11 percent, and
> they cover every citizen. We spend a whopping 17 percent and leave tens of
> millions of Americans uninsured.
> 
> If you want a very readable short course how European systems really work,
> take a look at “The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better,
> Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care,” by T.R. Reid, a former Washington Post
> foreign correspondent. You might also watch a fascinating 2008 “Frontline”
> series, available online, in which Reid was an adviser: “Sick Around the
> World: Can the U.S. Learn Anything From the Rest of the World About How to
> Run a Health Care System?”
> 
> So far, the answer seems to be “No,” not because there aren’t valuable
> lessons, but because politicians won’t relinquish their myths about
> European health systems. Reid takes up that task.
> 
> Myth No. 1, he says, is that foreign systems with universal coverage are
> all “socialized medicine.” In countries such as France, Germany,
> Switzerland and Japan, the coverage is universal while doctors and
> insurers are private. Individuals get their insurance through their
> workplace, sharing the premium with their employer as we do – and the
> government picks up the premium if they lose their job.
> 
> Myth No. 2, “long waits and rationed care,” is another whopper. “In many
> developed countries,” Reid writes, “people have quicker access to care and
> more choice than Americans do.” In France, Germany and Japan, you can pick
> any provider or hospital in the country. Care is speedy and high quality,
> and no one is turned down.
> 
> Myth No. 3 really grabs my attention: the delusion that countries with
> universal care “are wasteful systems run by bloated bureaucracies.” In
> fact, the opposite is true.
> 
> America’s for-profit health insurance companies have the highest
> administrative costs of any developed country. Twenty percent or more of
> every premium dollar goes to nonmedical costs: paperwork, marketing,
> profits, etc. In developed countries with universal coverage, such as
> France and Germany, the administrative costs average about 5 percent.
> That’s because every developed country but ours has decided health
> insurance should be a nonprofit operation. (We once thought that, too,
> until private insurance companies began buying up nonprofit health
> insurers like Blue Cross and Blue Shield and converting them into
> profit-makers.) In France and Germany, health insurance is sold by private
> insurers, who can only charge fixed rates in the nonprofit health field
> but can sell other forms of insurance for a profit.
> 
> These countries also hold down costs by making coverage mandatory and by
> using a unified set of rules and payment schedules for all hospitals and
> doctors. This does not mean a single-payer system or a government-run
> health system. But it does sharply cut health costs by eliminating the
> mishmash of records and charges used by our myriad insurance firms, who
> use all kinds of gimmicks to shift their costs. A unified system makes it
> possible for France and Germany to use digital records; every insured
> person has a smart card that includes all his or her health information,
> further cutting the number of bureaucrats. U.S. companies oppose such
> efficiencies, Reid says, “because they spend money on proprietary systems
> and no one wants to get together on a common system.” Can we afford this
> stubbornness?
> 
> For those who think we could never make the switch to such systems, take
> note that Switzerland shifted from private health insurers to nonprofits
> in 1994. None of these European plans have to be adopted wholesale.
> 
> Yet there’s no sign we’re even examining them for useful lessons. Some
> U.S. senators on the Finance Committee bought Reid’s book, but have you
> heard anyone talk about European health systems? Of course not. It’s
> easier to embrace our myths and pretend Americans know best about managing
> health care. But that’s the biggest myth of them all.
> 
> --------------------------------------------------
> 
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
> 
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
> 
> "The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
> and the Realist adjusts his sails."
> 
> - Unknown
> 
> 
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