You present no facts and only slanderous statements, so they can be dismissed without any reason. But I will offer my facts to back up what I have said.
Fact, no one is advocating socialized health care, this would be where the nurses and Dr's get a check from the government and work directly for the FED. What most Americans who want a fair health care for all are advocating is a socialized health insurance plan. This is where profit is take out of the system and every one pays in like Social Security or Medicare which are very very popular programs. So popular that in fact it would be suicide for any one to try to destroy them, I.E. Paul Ryan. Canada and Australia and Japan are examples of this system that is very viable and works much better than our system.
Fact, this socialized insurance will not result in the Republican lie of rationing, and in fact we have rationing in the USA today. Its based on income. If you have money you can have all the care you can buy. 18000 Americans die each year because they have no money or not enough for some expensive procedures and or no health care. Some even die because the health care insurance providers ration what kind of care they will pay for. many will just do not get treatment because they can not afford and their insurance company's will not pay for treatment, this is rationing and this is why in places like Canada some elective procedures are a get in line and wait your turn. Its because every one has access to health care, America has taken out 50 million or more people out of line, so the people with the money go to the front of the line. This is the same as saying you can get a heart transplant if you are the high bidder on organbay auctions. In the current US health care system rationing is carried out by financial ability, either denying people care or putting many into bankruptcy.
The idea that government will make the decision for you and your doctor is another republican lie. Medicare is one of the most popular plans in the USA and those on it even the touted Ian Rand who denounced it then took SS and Medicare to take care of her lung cancer that she got from smoking six packs a day. Should she not have taken her own advice and just went and died quietly in the corner of her home if she could not afford to get treatment? I guess when its you who is sick then its another story.
Fact currently over 60% of health care is paid for my government spending as per 2005 [more now] so what would be the problem with taking everyone into a gov. insurance plan and everyone pays something?
The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal
health insurance system.1
• In 2006, the U.S. census reported that 46 million Americans (recently revised downward
to 45 million) have no health insurance.2
• “Over a third (36%) of families living below the poverty line are uninsured. Hispanic
Americans (34%) are more than twice as likely to be uninsured as white Americans,
(13%) while 21% of black Americans have no health insurance.”3
• More than 9 million children lack health insurance in America.4
• Eighteen thousand people die each year because they are uninsured.5
• According to the UN Human Development Report, “The uninsured are less likely to have
regular outpatient care, so they are more likely to be hospitalized for avoidable health
problems. Once in hospital, they receive fewer services and are more likely to die in the
hospital than are insured patients. They also receive less preventive care. Over 40% of
the uninsured do not have a regular place to go when they are sick and over a third of the
uninsured say that they or someone in their family went without needed care, including
recommended treatments or prescription drugs in the last year, because of cost.”6
• Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Three-quarters of those filings are
people with health insurance.7
• U.S. health care spending is approximately $2 trillion per year, or $6,697 per person.8
The United States continues to spend significantly more on health care than other
countries in the world.9
• Administrative costs account for 31 percent of all health care expenditures in the United
States. The average overhead for U.S. private health insurers is 11.7 percent; for
Medicare, it is 3.6 percent; for Canada’s national health insurance program, it is 1.3
percent.10
• According to the UN Human Development Report, while the United States leads the
world in spending on health care, “countries spending substantially less than the US have
2
healthier populations.… The infant mortality rate for the U.S. is now higher than for
many other industrial countries.”11
• A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby in Detroit.
The infant mortality rate in Detroit is 15.5, compared to El Salvador's rate of 9.7.12
• Canadians live three years longer on average than we do.13
• A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that older
Americans are significantly less healthy than their British counterparts - we have
more diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, lung disease and cancer. Even the poorest Brits
can expect to live longer than the richest Americans.14
• Cubans have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States and according to the
U.N. Human Development Report, a longer average lifespan.15
• Over the next decade, the federal government will give the drug and health care
industries an estimated $822 billion as a result of the 2003 enactment of Medicare Part D
(the Medicare prescription drug plan).16
• There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members
of Congress.17
• Ninety percent of Americans believe the American health care system needs fundamental
changes or needs to be completely rebuilt. Two-thirds of Americans believe the federal
government should guarantee universal health care for all citizens.18
NOTES
1 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development
Report, UNDP, 2005; Universal Health Insurance in the United States: Reflections on the Past, the Present, and the
Future. American Journal of Public Health;
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articl ... id=1447684
2
http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf This figure was recently revised downward to 44.8 million due
to a computer programming error.
3 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development
Report, UNDP, 2005.
4 The Great Divide: When Kids Get Sick, Insurance Matters, Families USA Publication No. 07-102, February 2007.
5 Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine, January 2004.
http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175
6 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development
Report, UNDP, 2005
7 “Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy,” Himmelstein et al, Health Affairs, February 2, 2005.
8 Catlin, A, C. Cowan, S. Heffler, et al, “National Health Spending in 2005.” Health Affairs 26:1 (2006).
9 OECD, in Figures 2006-2007 Health Spending and Resources.
http://ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publica ... 061T02.xls.
10 Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Terry Campbell, M.H.A., and David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Costs of Health
Care Administration, N Engl J Med 2003;349:768-75.
11 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development
Report, UNDP, 2005.
3
12
http://www.infantmortprogram.org/stats.asp
13 World Health Organization, 2004 statistics.
14 James Banks, PhD; Michael Marmot, MD; Zoe Oldfield, MSc; James P. Smith, PhD, “Disease and Disadvantage
in the United States and in England” JAMA 2006; 295:2037-2045; Alan Cowell, “Study Says Older Americans Are
Less Healthy Than British,” New York Times, May 3, 2006
15 UN Human Development Report, 2006.
http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/pdfs/report ... mplete.pdf
16 Congressional Budget Office,
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/77xx/doc7731 ... utlook.pdf
17 Opensecrets.org (registered health/drug industry lobbyists)
18
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/CBSNews_p ... h_care.pdf
