Why Health Care Has to be for Everyone?

The short answer is because your life depends on it.

We are now going into a period where the next major sets of diseases will not be affected by antibiotics. Also killer versions of the flu have never been affected by any antibiotics. Disease has been controlled by early identification and isolation, that is based on being able to afford that early identification and isolation worldwide. With economic problems, health care is one area that immediately loses. Add to that the fact that global warming will be providing many weather related large scale disasters, where we have perfect opportunities for massive disease outbreaks.

In addition to viruses we also now have:

Diseases Connected to Antibiotic Resistance

This page lists links to fact sheets about specific organisms with associated resistance issues.

• Tuberculosis
• Head Lice
• Malaria
• Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)
• Streptococcus pneumoniae
• Gonorrhea
• Typhoid Fever
• Vancomycin/Glycopeptide-Intermediate Staphylococcus aureus (VISA/GISA)
• Vancomycin-Resistant Enterococci (VRE)

(CDC)

The globalization of our economy has made it impossible to use isolation as successful disease containment strategy. Indeed the speed of people transferring around the world community is much faster than incubation times, so no isolation will work. Here again we have the clash of the Democratic liberal "local green economies" and the Republican conservative "globalization" in terms of long term good for community.

When disease hits, we need everyone to have health care and treatment as soon as possible. Basically we have a huge portion of our population who doesn't have insurance or whose insurance covers so little, that they avoid health care for as long as possible. Plus we are all told that doctors can't treat cold like symptoms and we have learned that mostly, doctors cannot diagnose anything in early stages. Odds are that google will know two weeks before any medical people know.

So the disease outbreak will be upon us in overwhelming numbers before we know it is coming. Now we have private profit-driven health insurance driving our health care response.

Insurances depend on a small steady predicable rate of incidents to payout for. Large scale disasters wipe out insurance companies which is why earthquake, hurricane and flood insurance is expensive and hard-to-get where that insurance is needed. So huge threats have always had to be covered by the whole community, basically the government.

First and foremost it matters "who" is creating government. As we have seen our Republican government take the very successful FEMA program that provided aid after the Red River flood in Minnesota and turn FEMA into an organization was NOT even able to send food and water to people after Hurricane Katrina. After Hurricane Katrina, people died in nursing homes waiting, even after loved ones constantly called for help. Democrats know how do good government, Republicans know how to do marketing campaigns that deceive. So "who" is managing the government matters a great deal.

Also we need one single insurance pool of people, otherwise health care insurance companies "cherry pick" - insuring the healthy, while leaving the other people to die, to go bankrupt or for a few lucky ones, get government help,

So how does the US rank in healthcare compared to other industrialized countries: a failing grade!

U.S. Health Care Outcomes Compare Unfavorably To Other Industrialized Countries
Tuesday September 26, 2006
A recent Commonwealth Fund study shows that the U.S. health care system compares unfavorably to that of other industrialized countries. According to the Hattiesburg American, the U.S. has an alarmingly high infant mortality rate when compared to that of other countries. Also, people who have reached the age of 60 are more likely to die sooner in the U.S. than they would in other industrialized nations.

The study rates countries according to health outcomes, quality, access, equity, and efficiency. The U.S. received a failing score of 66 out of 100.
(Health Insurance)

France has such prompt good health care, that a doctor would dispatched to your home in the middle of the night, documented in detail in the documentary, "Sicko".

In 2000, health care experts for the World Health Organization tried to do a statistical ranking of the world's health care systems. They studied 191 countries and ranked them on things like the number of years people lived in good health and whether everyone had access to good health care. France came in first. The United States ranked 37th.

Some researchers, however, said that study was flawed, arguing that there might be things other than a country's health care system that determined factors like longevity. So this year, two researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine measured something called the "amenable mortality." Basically, it's a measure of deaths that could have been prevented with good health care. The researchers looked at health care in 19 industrialized nations. Again, France came in first. The United States was last.
(NPR)

And yet France pays two/thirds of the GDP cost, and half of the per person cost (even with universal health care) of what the US pays.

Health Care: An International Comparison

Countries with governments and economies similar to the United States have come up with a variety of methods to make sure that all of their citizens receive health care. While residents in Europe and Japan may seem to pay higher insurance premiums or taxes than Americans, in the end, when all costs are added up, Americans spend more money on health care per person — with fewer people covered.

France

Population: 61.7 million

Life expectancy at birth: 80.3

Health spending as part of GDP: 11.1%

System type: Universal coverage. Employment-based system, with supplemental private insurance.

Coverage: 100%

Average annual per-person spending: Total: $3,374. Breakdown: $2,693 by government, $448 on private insurance, $233 consumer out-of-pocket*

Financing: Employers pay equivalent of 13.1% of employee's salary to the national health insurance program. Employees pay 0.75% of salary. Income taxes also helps provide universal coverage for retirees, unemployed, disabled and the poor. Most people (87%) also have supplemental insurance from private for-profit insurers, which they purchase or is often paid for by an employer.

Notable features: The national system pays 100 percent of costs for people with one of 30 long-term conditions, including diabetes and cancer. Broad choice in doctors and specialists. Strong pre- and post-natal care, strong cancer case management.

United States

Population: 302 million

Life expectancy at birth: 78.1

Health spending as part of GDP: 15.3%

System type: Employer-employee based (54%) and government funding (46%). Government covers all older adults and the disabled (Medicare), the poor (Medicaid), veterans, government employees and Native Americans.

Coverage: 82% of people under 65; 100% of people 65 or over.

Average annual per-person spending: Total: $6,402. Breakdown: $2,884 by government; $2,676 for private insurance, with 52% paid by employers, 48% paid by employees; $842 by consumer out-of-pocket*

Financing: Larger companies self-insured. Employers and employees share costs. Income taxes fund Medicare, Medicaid and other public programs. Co-payments and deductibles highly variable in the private system.

(NPR)

Basically the Republican form of health care for the rich, by the rich and of the rich will even fail the rich catastrophically when we reach the a virus or a disease health care challenge that is certain to come. From the Republican point of view, the good news is that the health care crisis will probably entirely solve the social security long term financing issues, since the old are the most vulnerable to diseases and flus. The bad news is that even the still living Republicans left may not enjoy the remnants of civilization that are left. The mantra of "We all do better, when we all do better" is really true when it comes to community health care. The question is will the King Midas rich figure this out, before King Midas rich are sitting in rooms of gold with nothing left that gold can buy.