...Health Care: Americans pay MORE, get LESS...:

[bvar22]

Keep these numbers. They will come in handy when disputing the Republican's propaganda about Health Care.

Is the US really Number 1?
Not in Health Care.
Here are the numbers:

Health care spending per person, U.S. world rank: No. 1

Health care performance, U.S. world rank: No. 37

Health care spending per person, French world rank: No. 9

Health care performance, French world rank: No. 1

Health care spending per person, U.S.: $5,267

Health care spending per person, Europe: $2,282.

(Data from 2002. European average includes Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom. Health care performance includes average life expectancy, child mortality rates, access to medical services and efficiency in use of resources.)

Number of uninsured Americans: 45 million

Number of uninsured Britons and Canadians: 0

Increase in average U.S. earnings, 2000-2005: 12 percent

Increase in average health insurance premiums, 2000-2005: 59 percent

Average family's monthly payment for health insurance, 1988: $52

Average family's monthly payment for health insurance, 2004: $222

Sources: World Health Organization, Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, General Motors Corp.


http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5451060.html

[yankeedem]

1. Even the average family expenditure for insurance

Doesn't even do health care costs justice- co-pays routinely exceed $100 /month, and as the company contribution goes up, it stifles wage increases.

[Vinca]

2. Wow - if $222 was all it cost me for health insurance a month,

I'd feel as if I won the Megabucks. Try $1,000 a month with a $4,500 deductible, no outpatient care, no dental, no drugs. That's why we had to drop it. This country should be horribly ashamed. Our representatives in Washington should be more ashamed. They never seem to get to the real needs of the people. Everyone assumes the uninsured "somehow" get needed treatment. Here's a news flash. Often they don't and many times they die for lack of medical care . . . in the richest country on the planet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

3. Yes, mine is going up by $90 per month next month UNLESS

I increase my deductible to a ridiculously high figure.

Running a health insurance company seems to have become a license to print money.

[Vinca]

4. It's obscene.

The last year we had it, it went up 36%. The miserable company never paid a dime on our behalf, but you wouldn't believe how they came after us, soliciting business, after we quit paying. When I suggested we might keep the policy if they could come down in their rates, we might just as well have suggested we import blue cheese from the moon. It wasn't going to happen.

[Warpy]

5. I haven't had health insurance for 18 years

I was told I wouldn't be hired on staff at my last job because I might make their premiums go up due to my preexisting condition (which is a dilly, but a controlled dilly). The last time I priced BC/BS was before Fuckwit got in. It was $700/month, higher than my mortgage. I could have afforded it if I'd found a nice box to live in. Since I realized I'd be just as bankrupt paying 20% of the cost of a severe illness as the full tab, I passed.

I feel as though this country wants me to die since I'm not young and perfect. I feel as though neglecting me to death has become official policy. To say I am angry about this is the understatement of the century.

Doctors are the best. They will slash their fees if they know you're not insured. They seen to take particular delight in stiffing an HMO by charging the lowest fee possible on the schedeules.

[PA Democrat]

6. Thanks. I am going to send this to my right wing brother-in-law

He was recently denigrating "socialized medicine". When I asked him about his family's health insurance coverage, he admitted that they are covered under his wife's insurance plan courtesy of her TEACHER"S UNION, paid for by TAXPAYERS. As long as they have THEIRS the rest of America can rot, as far as they are concerned. Sad, isn't it?