Health care in America
Sven, 23 years old, had a broken leg. He went to the hospital where they asked him his name and social security number. Without signing any papers, the doctors immediately took care of him and put on a cast. He didn't have to wait for hours. There was no bureaucracy in the way strangling the experience.
All of Sven's education was paid for by the government, including college. As a matter of fact, during college he received $400.00 per month that he didn't have to pay back.
He works for minimum wage in a 38 hour a week government job, has 5 weeks paid vacation, paid sick leave, and a guaranteed pension, even if his company folds. Should he become unemployed, he would keep 80% of his salary until he finds a new job.
If Sven's child gets sick, he is allowed to stay home with his child and get paid 100% of his salary. Sven has free health care, would receive up to $15,000 a year tax free if he cannot work at all. Oh yea, and Sven is from Sweden. The only thing so far similar to what we have here in America is that as a single person he pays high taxes, similar to here (combined with state and purchase taxes).
In a published comparison by the Congressional Research Service prepared for members of Congress, US health-care spending is compared to other countries:
"The United States spends more money on health care than any other country in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD consists of 30 democracies, most of which are considered the most economically advanced countries in the world. According to OECD data, the United States spent $6,102 per capita on health care in 2004 — more than double the OECD average and 19.9% more than Luxembourg, the second-highest spending country. In 2004, 15.3% of the U.S. economy was devoted to health care, compared with 8.9% in the average OECD country and 11.6% in second-placed Switzerland."
Yet in terms of health-care system performance the World Health Organization in the year 2000 ranks America at #37 worldwide. According to a Harvard Medical School study, 62% of all bankruptcies in the U.S. were directly caused by medical bills in 2008. According to the book, "A Return to Healing: Radical Health Care Reform and the future of Medicine" by Len Saputo and Bryon Belitsos $24,300,112 was the total compensation of Ron Williams CEO of Aetna in 2008. $12,236,740 was the total compensation of H. Edward Hanway, CEO of CIGNA in 2008.
Weren't those companies that just received millions of dollars from our president in the bailout? Perhaps there is a better way to do things.
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For more articles like this see:
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Comments
The state of health care in the US is unreal and disgusting. The people who claim they don't want the government making decisions about their health care seem to have no problem with corporate beancounters doing so. They don't care that millions are without health care so long as they have theirs, nor do they imagine they could easily lose what coverage they have. What's worse is the politicians who have excellent *government* (taxpayer) provided care claiming "the taxpayers/government" shouldn't be in the business of providing health care to everyone.
Those politicians would reform the system in a heartbeat if they were told their health care was dependent on it.
Buffy - the more I learn about it the weirder it gets. There are actions we can take. Read my next article: GOP accuse Obama of rushing healthcare reform. What?
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