Sep 21 2006
State of American Health Care
Do you think it’s time for a reform? I surely do. I know it’s been awhile since I’ve written, but this is something that has been weighing heavily on me this whole time. Look at these statistics brought to us by The Commonwealth Fund:
–Only 49% of U.S. adults receive the recommended preventive and screening tests for their age and sex.
–Only half of patients with congestive heart failure receive written discharge instructions regarding care following hospitalization.
–Nationwide, preventable hospital admissions for patients with chronic health conditions such as diabetes and asthma were twice as high as the level achieved by the best performing states.
–Hospital 30-day re-admission rates for Medicare patients ranged from 14% to 22% across regions.
–One-third of all adults under 65 have problems paying their medical bills or have medical debt they are paying over time.
–Only 17% of U.S. doctors use electronic medical records, compared with 80% in the top three countries.
–On multiple measures across quality of care and access to care, there is a wide gap between low income and the uninsured, and those with higher incomes and insurance. On average, measures for low income and uninsured people in these areas would have to improve by one-third to close the gap.
–As a share of total health expenditures, insurance administrative costs in the U.S. were more than three times the rate in countries with integrated payment systems.
I know, I know, none of us like paying taxes. But, if we could just raise our taxes by 6%, we could solve (or come close to) the healthcare predicament. Imagine, not having lines of people waiting for sub-standard care outside a community facility that isn’t staffed to actually care for people, let alone heal them. Imagine all children being able to focus because they don’t have a cavity that’s giving them hell. Idyllic? Probably. Impossible? Not at all.
16% of our GDP is already dedicated to health care, imagine if we actually put it to work for our country.
