by ERICA ROYBAL
It has nearly been a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health care reform. Nearly every president since then has attempted to meet Teddy’s challenge by some means. In 1943, Mr. John Dingell introduced the first bill for comprehensive health care reform. Sixty-five years later Mr. Dingell’s son continues to introduce that bill at the beginning of every session. Nonetheless, every attempt by every single president and every single set of Congress representation has failed in the sense that American citizens remain left with health care hardships. According to various studies conducted across the country, more than 30 million American citizens cannot obtain coverage. One in every three American citizens goes without health coverage at one point or another. Everyday 14,000 Americans lose their coverage. A serious problem plagues the US health care system and this problem does not just curse the uninsured. America remains the only advanced democracy on Earth, the only wealthy nation that allows health care hardships for millions of its citizens. In America, party affiliation on Capitol Hill should not matter. The large bickering debate between killing health care reform and creating it should not continue. Greed should not exist. Nevertheless, the unfortunate truth remains greed does indeed exist, the bickering debate will continue, party affiliation on Capitol Hill does matter and Americans remain stuck with the most inefficient health system among several other countries. The 70,000 Americans that do have coverage remain living with a health care hardship because compared to several other rich countries the United States health care system consistently underperforms. In “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall: An International Update on the Comparative Performance of American Health Care,” the study focused on interviews with physicians and patients in Australia, Britain, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. Both physicians and patients spoke about their experiences and perceptions on their health systems. The second study explored the reasons why health costs in the US remain higher compared to eight other countries: Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand. According to these two studies, the US health care system ranks last among other major rich countries in the areas that include efficiency, quality and access.
One of several significant components compared the health care systems: efficiency and healthier lives of the people inhabiting each country. The studies show that the US performs poorly on measures of national health expenditures, administrative costs, the usage of information technology and multidisciplinary teams or the usage of the team approach. The usage of information technology and the team approach work extremely well in the other countries to manage chronic conditions and coordinate care. The Director of The Common Wealth Fund, Karen Davis, commented to the Agence France Presse, “We pride ourselves on being advanced on so many areas of technology but it’s not the case on health information technology, other countries have just moved ahead.” Information technology and systems in countries like Germany, New Zealand and the U.K. enhance the ability of physicians to monitor patients with chronic conditions. These systems make it easy for physicians to print out medication lists even medications from other physicians and history reports. In this study, the U.K. and New Zealand ranked first and second as far as efficiency. In terms of healthier lives, the US ranks last. The study, “Multinational Comparisons of Health Systems Data,” found that even though the US spends the most on both ‘publicly and privately financed health insurance; its citizens had the most potential years of life lost because of circulatory and respiratory diseases’ and diabetes. Compared to the other countries, the US has significant higher death rates. Compared to Canada the death rates in the US continue to stay 25 to 50 percent higher. The study included that ill citizens of New Zealand remain less likely to acquire illness for a condition treatable by a doctor. Australia ranked first in terms of its citizens living healthier lives.
The observation of quality included five sub-components: effective care, safe care, coordinated care and patient-centered care. The US won the contest of poor performance in the categories of chronic care management and safe, coordinated and patient-centered care. The study concluded that Americans go without needed health care because of cost if they do not possess coverage. An additional component observed in the studies was equity. The US ranked a clear last. The Common Wealth Fund study summed up the fact that Americans with below-average incomes remain more likely to report ‘not visiting a doctor, not getting a recommended test, not attending treatment or follow up care, not filling a prescription and not seeing a dentist’. “The US spends twice what the average industrialized country spends on health care but we are clearly not getting value for the money,” stated Karen Davis.
Astonishing hardships remain placed upon the uninsured Americans who live day-to-day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. Uninsured translates to no affordable medical help and it means when an uninsured American’s health is at risk they are facing potential financial crises. These uninsured Americans do not mainly consist of people on welfare; they consist of primarily middle-class Americans. Some middle-class Americans cannot get insurance through their employer. Self-employed middle-class Americans cannot afford coverage since buying insurance independently costs three times more than the coverage one would receive from their employer. Several Americans willing and capable of paying for coverage remain uninsured and denied of coverage due to a previous illness or health conditions that insurance companies do not want to deal with because of the risk. Most obviously, due to the fact that America does not provide its citizens with universal health care accessibility remains at a low. From another perspective the US and Canada rank lowest on the component of prompt accessibility of appointments with physicians, while Germany ranks first.
The US ranks last of six nations overall. The US ranked last in most areas, including access to health care, patient safety, timeliness of care, efficiency and equity. Americans ranked last, in terms of whether they had a regular physician. “This study blows a lot of myths about the US health system,” stated Davis, “We spend three times what the average country spends on a day of hospital care and we also spend twice what the average country spends on prescription medication.” These rankings summarize evidence on measures based upon national mortality data and the perceptions and experiences of patients and doctors. America needs to remove financial barriers to care and improve the delivery of care for its citizens. New Zealand, Australia and the U.K. continue to demonstrate superior performance with Germany joining their superiority. “Our failure to ensure health insurance for all and encourage stable, long-term ties between physicians and patients shows in our poor performance on measures of quality, access, efficiency, equity, and health outcomes,” said Karen Davis. America differs from the other countries by the fact that Americans have no universal health insurance coverage. Maybe money holds a greater value in America than any class- notably the poor or the injured that cannot obtain coverage- of people. The United States continues to stay far behind in adopting modern health information technology, which translates into spiraling upward costs and poor care. Britain received the top score in overall ranking among the countries in the study, followed by Germany, New Zealand and Australia tied for third followed by Canada and the United States. These other rich countries have no financial burden and their citizens carry no health hardships however, they have long waiting lists for specialized services.
