Americans understand something that the political classes are just beginning to take seriously: America’s health care system is dysfunctional.
As a poll of 1,281 Americans conducted in February and issued in March by CBS News and The New York Times, about nine in 10 say “the system needs at least fundamental changes, including 36 percent who favor a complete overhaul.”
Much of the concern, according to the poll, is due to cost. Most people say “they are generally satisfied with the quality of their own health care, including 41 percent who say they are very satisfied,” but only “one in five are very satisfied with what they pay for health care, while a majority (52 percent) are dissatisfied, including a third who are very dissatisfied.”
A report issued today by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit group that studies health care, offered a glimpse into where the dissatisfaction comes from.
The report, which studied health care in Germany, Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada, found that all five “provide better care for less money,” according to Reuters. The U.S. system “ranks last … on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and outcomes,” the non-profit group said in a press release.
“The United States is not getting value for the money that is spent on health care,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis told Reuters.
That seems pretty obvious, though Congress has made little effort to do more than nibble at the edges since the failure of the Clinton health care plan more than a decade ago.
Congress, President George W. Bush, many employers and insurers have all agreed in recent months to overhaul the U.S. health care system — an uncoordinated conglomeration of employer-funded care, private health insurance and government programs.
Despite spending about two times per capita what the other countries studied spend — $6,102 for the United States in 2004, compared with $3,005 for Germany, $3,165 for Canada, $2,083 for New Zealand, $2,876 for Australia and $2,546 for Great Britain – there are about 45 million Americans with no insurance.
And this disparity is likely to get worse, unless we change the way we manage our health-care system.
The answer? Single-payer, universal coverage.
Taking the profit out of the health-care system would level the playing field while addressing the long-term costs that our broken system creates — offsetting the cost to taxpayers of implementing universal coverage.
And it is the right thing to do — health care should not be a commodity but a right. No one should have to worry about whether he or she has enough to see a doctor.
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Hank Kalet 