Well, the long and short of it is
-- the United States of America... well, sort of.
Don't believe everything that gets
tossed around these days about our country's failure to spend money caring for
the sick. Long before the Obama Care debate started, the U.S. was spending more
money per person on healthcare than any other nation in the world. Now, we are
set to spend even more. The reality is
that we already spend much more per capita on healthcare than other nations,
including Canada, which according to most liberals, have healthcare figured
out. We spend twice as much per person than New Zealand and 80% more than
average Western nations like Germany, Denmark, or the U.K. (World Health
Organization, 2010 statistics).
I know what you're probably
thinking... The United States has a higher GDP, or Gross Domestic Product,
therefore it can afford to spend more on healthcare, but it probably doesn't. Wrong
again. Long before the Affordable Health Care applications began, the United
States was spending nearly 18% of its GDP on healthcare (again 2010 stats).
That's about double what Sweden, Ireland, or the U.K. spends relative to their
GDP. In addition, the United States has nearly doubled healthcare expenditures
as a percent of GDP since 2000, meaning we are spending far more than we did
even a decade ago.
Once again, these expenditures have
been rising long BEFORE Obama-Care,
which will be adding considerably to the totals. This massive amount of
spending is a relatively recent phenomenon as health care prices skyrocket and
as Americans continue to let their bodies go to fatty foods, nicotine, drugs,
and a lack of exercise.
There is a lot of false debate in this country about
healthcare. Now the government is shut down in what has to be the most idiotic
move the Republicans have pulled in ages. They want to change a few things in
the law and have held the nation hostage to do it.
It's true, the nation is severely
misinformed about healthcare. If you stop reading here, you will be to. You
see, we really need to ask the right questions about healthcare before we apply
solutions. Here's where we begin:
How can we be spending
almost twice as much per capita as the rest of the world on healthcare AND
nearly twice the percentage of our gross domestic product as other nations and yet,
still be needing more?
The answer comes if we dig a
little bit deeper and it carries some really damning evidence about our nation's
health and healthcare system. Let's start with every liberal's favorite
healthcare state, Canada. As noted, for as far back as I could see in the data,
Canada has always spent less per capita on healthcare than the United States.
Canada has almost always put a smaller percentage of the GDP toward healthcare
(I think there was an exception in 2006).
Here's the real kicker though:
Canada's system pays for nearly 80% of total healthcare costs individuals and
families accrue. The United States, even by spending twice as much per person, government
spending only covers around 50% of total costs accrued by individuals and
families. In other words, we are not only paying more; we are getting significantly less healthcare for the dollar. The
trade off we get is (a mostly perceived) immediacy and specialization with our
healthcare needs -- luxuries that the majority of us don't need, or won't need
until we get much, much older.
So let's talk about the false
debate coming from the Right and the Left in this country.
Liberals like to tell us stories
about people denied services and kicked out of hospitals because of their
inability to pay. Some of those stories are true. What isn't true and what will
NEVER be true is that spending more money will fix this problem. Why?
Spending
more money on healthcare at this point is like
putting
premium gasoline in a car with no tires.
We already
spend twice what everyone else does.
The system
itself must be reformed.
Conservatives like to point out
how much money we already spend on healthcare, which is exactly what I am
doing. They are correct, we spend more than anyone. What they don't want to
acknowledge is that we don't get a good value on what we pay for because the greed
in our beloved "Private Sector"
has artificially jacked up prices for basic care, thereby fulfilling the dreams
of budding capitalists everywhere. That's why we spend more and for the most
part end up getting less. Fat cat insurance agencies and pharmaceutical companies
not only bleed out those with insurance, they also get rich on the backs of
non-profit hospitals, Medicare, and every sick and dying American.
Most of all of this is a recent
phenomenon as medical technologies and new drugs are serving up "wonder
cures" that all cost considerably more that standard care. We operate with
a belief in this country that all of our bodies deserve the luxury "Lexus"
treatment.
But there's more, unfortunately. While
demanding the "Lexus" treatment, there are still huge swaths of the
country that treat their bodies like a Chevy Pinto. Our current state of health
in American is poor.
We already know that Americans
are generally overfed and under-exercised. A huge (pun intended) problem that drives
costs through the roof as overly
endowed bodies fall through the floor.
Couple this sagging-triceps
reality with the approximately 200 billion we spend on drug and alcohol abuse
-- we've got multiple problems on our hands. Next time you're out and about and
happen to meet an emergency room worker from your local hospital, ask them what
percentage of their day is devoted to the following:
1. Drug overdose
2. Alcohol or Drug-related crashes
3. Alcohol or Drug-related suicide attempts
4. Alcohol or
Drug-related violence
5. Hypochondria
You might be very surprised.
Then again, you could be awake enough to know what's really going on in America,
and it's got very little to do with how much we spend and everything to do with how & why we spend it: the
downward pull on the total healthcare system.
That downward pull is
two-fold:
A) corporate greed leeching the sick, and
B) personal irresponsibility and
entitlement in a population refusing to practice self-care
And there's one more factor to
consider, and despite naming the obvious, it must be named if we're going to be
honest:
The United States spends more on healthcare because Americans go to the
doctor more; our country healthcare system treats as much "Loss of Health FEAR"
as it does the genuine loss of health.
We are some of the most
over-medicated, fearful, and weakest people on the planet when it comes to
illness. From running little Johnny to the doctor at the first snivel of his
nose, to demanding antibiotics from our doctors every time our temperature
crosses 100 degrees -- we are a nation of hypochondriacs, hell bent on getting
only the very best care for each and every wart, hemorrhoid, or pimple that
surfaces. We consume over 75% of the world's pain medication because every time
we so much as twist an ankle we hold our hands for more opium candy. America
will always spend more on health care so long as Americans are running to the
doctor and popping pills at the first sign of discomfort.
Ok, rant over. And I didn't
even get into frivolous patient lawsuits.
Here's the deal --
Instead of having a real
debate about Obama Care, Republicans shut down the government. They are idiots,
but we've known that for a while now. They wouldn't be getting much more done
with Romney in office because they're not really known for their thinking
prowess. They're often part of that overfed and under-exercised America
described above. And talk show hosts that represent them are part of that pain-pill
nation described above.
Obama Care is set to begin in
2014 and will help very many people. Genuine assistance is for certain. It will
allow college students to stay on their parents insurance a little bit longer;
it will removing pre-existing condition clauses from insurance policies; it may
very well help my own family directly by lifting certain types of restrictions
insurance companies put on their customers. People will be helped by this
expansion -- at least the law is a step in the "sort of-almost-maybe-right
direction."
Only the very callous are
against government spending to aid the sick. But let's make no mistake, we already
spend enough to more than enough to care for them in this country. We
spend more than any other country in the world; we just do not spend the money
in the right way. The long-term effect of Obama Care will only exacerbate the
American problem because it doesn't address any of the real issues of personal
responsibility and corporate greed; it inflates them with more government
spending.
Drug manufacturers who are
already getting rich on the suffering of the sick and the addictions of reckless,
can now take even more money from the government's hand just as they have been
taking it from private insurance for years. If you're a drug dealer (not the
good kind of drug dealer), you would consider a move like this as simply expanding
your market share. You can bet that morphine and hydrocodone manufactures
everywhere will be popping a cork in celebration the day that America's poor have
more reliable access to a $10 per bottle prescriptions to some of the most
addictive substance on the planet.
With Obama Care, more
Americans than ever before will have access to doctors they can run to with
their common colds, sore elbows, jock itch, and ingrown toenails. More
antibiotics will be prescribed for non-threatening conditions; more resistant super-bugs
created, the magnification of disease will now receive even more blessings from
government subsidy. All because we see money, not health, as a cure to illness.
The march of the obese will
continue as it always has, some of them (but not all) with milkshakes and
cheeseburgers in hand. Now, that march can gain a step with fully replaced
knees, spring loaded and ready bear another 50 pounds. Government subsidized heart
medication will be washed down with 32 ounces of Mountain Dew and followed by a
cigarette, just like it always has. At the deepest levels, America's health
won't be changing. Neither will it's purported "care."
Our gyms and running trails
will still be packed every January with as many good intentions as ever, but
remain sparse for most of the rest of the year, compounding heart problems, breathing
problems, and muscle atrophy. All leading to strokes, heart attacks, pulled
backs, and higher health care costs and disability payments for everyone.
Emergency rooms will still be
littered with suicide attempts, drive by shootings motivated by drugs, meth
overdoses, cocaine overdoses, and women beaten by their drunk husbands. The
real drain on the system won't be touched by Obama Care, nor could it ever be
addressed with government money because...
America's soul is what really needs the
healing.
The "Hemlock Merchants" manufacturing their
cures for every discomfort we feel will be richer than ever before. The cost of
healthcare will continue to rise and their coffers filled in ways we can only
imagine. Private insurance rates will drop at first to compete with the
government system, then they'll walk in lockstep together raising prices.
As prices continue to rise
from this utterly broken system run amok on the land, taxes to actually pay for
the new healthcare law should go up too, but they won't. America will borrow to
cover the difference like we always do. We'll default eventually. If not under
this administration, then definitely the next.
You see, Government is headed for a
shutdown either way.
And it's all because we're
unwilling to fix the lion-share of the problem.... ourselves.