Thanks to Gina for sending the following article. . .Myrl
American healthcare system needs serious overhaul
http://flathat.wm.edu/story.php?issue=2005-02-11&type=2&aid=4
By Monica Loveley
Flat Hat Staff Columnist
With all the recent attention being paid to Social Security, the more
tenuous situation of Medicare is being handily overlooked by our
government. Although Social Security's trust fund is predicted to
become bankrupted by 2042, Medicare's trust fund is predicted to become
bankrupted in less than 15 years. And Medicare is not the only issue:
In order to finance more homeland security projects, President Bush's
new budget proposal plans to make substantial cuts to Medicaid as well.
These financial statistics, however, only highlight the problematic
situation of the health care system as it stands in the United States.
There is currently a higher mortality rate for black men living in
Harlem, within miles of some of the best hospitals in the world, than
for men living in Bangladesh, a Third World country. The fact is that
even programs such as Medicare and Medicaid do not alleviate the burden
of medical care costs nearly enough for the disabled, retired and
unemployed. What is worse, one in eight Americans who live in poverty
are not able to afford basic, preventative health coverage.
One result of the situation is that this exposed demographic ends up
going to the emergency room only when conditions become severe or
life-threatening -- usually for diseases that would have been
preventable had the patient received proper health care from the
beginning. The emergency room, unlike a private clinic, cannot turn
people with serious emergencies away because of their inability to pay.
This cycle of emergency-only care costs the hospitals themselves and
Medicaid millions of dollars every year.
While in China last spring, I developed an infection and had to pay
out-of-pocket for doctor appointments, lab tests and medication. The
cost totaled 40 U.S. dollars. When I expressed how cheap I thought this
was to some of my British friends, they laughed at me. In Britain, as
well as many other European countries, the health care system is
subsidized by the government, or socialized.
When I was in London last fall and expressed a health concern, my
friends told me they would take me to a pharmacy where the pharmacist,
who has the authority to diagnose patients, would give me medication.
It didn't matter whether I was British or American, my health care
would be taken care of without the expensive and unnecessarily
complicated process of a doctor's appointment.
Not only is medical care a problem in the United States, so too are
prescription medication costs. For most of my life, thanks to my
parents' insurance, every medication I ever needed cost exactly three
dollars in co-pay. My first rude awakening to the reality of
prescription medication costs came this past December, as my mother's
insurance changed following her retirement. The cost for a month's
supply of only two of my asthma medications was more than $340.
For the first time the pictures of busloads of senior citizens happily
making their way to Canada to get their medications really hit home.
One of my childhood babysitters passed away last year. Dying of cancer
and suffering from extreme arthritis, Betty spent $400 a month on nine
pills for her arthritis. Nine pills, out of all the medication she
needed, because this was all she could afford.
The United States health care system, which so blatantly values the
lives of the wealthy to those of the poor, is inefficient, expensive
and, in Betty's case, nauseatingly unfair. The United Nations
Declaration of Human rights states a right to adequate medical care for
all humans, but the privatized system that exists in the United States
denies its people this right. While some insurance companies pay for
people's breast implants and teeth whitening, others who are not so
fortunate are left with nothing. Privately-funded public clinics in the
United States help to improve this situation; however, it should not be
the responsibility of a few altruistic people to provide the health
care that our country itself should be providing for its citizens.
It is my firm belief that the United States would benefit both
financially and ethically from a completely socialized health care
system. At the very least, the future of health care in the United
States does not deserve to be ignored.
Monica Loveley is a staff columnist for The Flat Hat. She is currently
is a senior at the College.
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