Get Real on Health Care »
Posted By tehranchik 3 months, 3 weeks ago in Political OpinionSome of my summer in France was spent listening to indignant outbursts about U.S. health care reform. The tone: “You must be kidding! What’s there to debate if 46.3 million Americans have no health insurance?”
I think the French are right. I don’t think there’s much to debate when France spends 11 percent of its gross domestic product on health care and insures everyone and the United States spends 16.5 percent of G.D.P. and leaves 20 percent of adults under 65 uninsured. The numbers don’t lie: The U.S. system is wasteful and unjust.
It’s not just the numbers. It’s the intangibles. Two of my children were born in Paris — a breeze. One of them got very sick on arrival in the United States — and my wife fainted in a doctor’s office from the anxiety of finding the appropriate care (when we did, at the eleventh hour, it was excellent). The American health system is an insidious stress-multiplier whose hassles, big and small, permeate already harried lives.
So I’m convinced there’s no real argument. As President Obama put it last week, “We spend one and half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t healthier for it.” Why would the United States cling to the dubious distinction of being the only wealthy nation that does not afford basic health insurance to all?
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tehranchik
Well, I'm from and live in the Pacific Northwest. I did live in the middle east during the late 70's and early 80 ...
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miklkit3 months, 3 weeks ago
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Why indeed are we spending more than anyone else and getting 3rd world class treatment? Do you WANT to die young? Do yo WANT your children to die younger? The system we have now is designed to only service the very richest people. The rest of us are SOL.
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