Welcome to the Newschoolers forums! You may read the forums as a guest, however you must be a registered member to post. Register to become a member today!
Insurance coverage. All other major industrialized nations provide universal health coverage, and most of them have comprehensive benefit packages with no cost-sharing by the patients. The United States, to its shame, has some 45 million people without health insurance and many more millions who have poor coverage. Although the president has blithely said that these people can always get treatment in an emergency room, many studies have shown that people without insurance postpone treatment until a minor illness becomes worse, harming their own health and imposing greater costs.
Access. Citizens abroad often face long waits before they can get to see a specialist or undergo elective surgery. Americans typically get prompter attention, although Germany does better. The real barriers here are the costs facing low-income people without insurance or with skimpy coverage. But even Americans with above-average incomes find it more difficult than their counterparts abroad to get care on nights or weekends without going to an emergency room, and many report having to wait six days or more for an appointment with their own doctors.
Fairness. The United States ranks dead last on almost all measures of equity because we have the greatest disparity in the quality of care given to richer and poorer citizens. Americans with below-average incomes are much less likely than their counterparts in other industrialized nations to see a doctor when sick, to fill prescriptions or to get needed tests and follow-up care.
Healthy lives. We have known for years that America has a high infant mortality rate, so it is no surprise that we rank last among 23 nations by that yardstick. But the problem is much broader. We rank near the bottom in healthy life expectancy at age 60, and 15th among 19 countries in deaths from a wide range of illnesses that would not have been fatal if treated with timely and effective care. The good news is that we have done a better job than other industrialized nations in reducing smoking. The bad news is that our obesity epidemic is the worst in the world.
Quality. In a comparison with
five other countries, the Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States
first in providing the “right care” for a given condition as defined by
standard clinical guidelines and gave it especially high marks for
preventive care, like Pap smears and mammograms to detect early-stage
cancers, and blood tests and cholesterol checks for hypertensive
patients. But we scored poorly in coordinating the care of chronically
ill patients, in protecting the safety of patients, and in meeting
their needs and preferences, which drove our overall quality rating
down to last place. American doctors and hospitals kill patients
through surgical and medical mistakes more often than their
counterparts in other industrialized nations.
cliffnotes: we fail....pretty much every other industrial and developed nation has better health care...
im in highschool and i'm voting for Obama. I wanted Hilary to win the primary, but now that she didn't, Obama all the way. we need to get the republicans out of the white house.