Who Cares About the Sick?

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.