Here's something worse than Obamacare
The Affordable Care Act falls far short of meeting its intended goal of lowering health care cost and bringing the uninsured into the health care system. There is no doubt that something needs to be done. But to repeal the health care law would leave us in a much worse situation. Before you once again urge your elected officials to repeal Obamacare, there are some things you need to understand about our health care system.
In the United States we spend far more per person than any other nation on health care. The U.S. spends $8,233 per person. The only countries that even come close are in Europe: Switzerland $5,297, Denmark $4,467, Germany $4,342, and those countries have universal health care.
With that amount of money being spent on health care in the U.S., you would think we have the best health care system in the world. But the facts tell a far different story. The ultimate indicator of a nation's health care system is life expectancy. As the nation that spends the most, we should live longest. Yet the average life expectancy in the U.S. is a mere 79.8 years. According to the World Health Organization, that ranks 35th among all nations, right between Costa Rica, 34th, and Chile, 36th. If you don't trust W.H.O. numbers, the C.I.A. for whatever reason did their own report and they ranked U.S. life expectancy 33rd. A short life expectancy indicates a poor health care system.
Another indicator of quality health care system is child mortality, the death rate of children by the age of 5 years. This is normally expressed in number of deaths per 1,000 births. One might think that the wealthiest nation on earth would have the lowest childhood mortality rate. The facts tell us a far different story. The childhood mortality rate in the U.S. in 2009-2012 was 7 deaths per 1,000 births. That ranks 37th among all nations. Our health care system is failing to protect our children; the numbers don't lie.
Our old health care system left 49 million people uninsured and millions more underinsured. In America, health insurance is a for-profit business, and corporations decide who can buy insurance. If you don't fit their business model, you can't get health insurance. Many who seek health insurance are denied or are priced out of the market. The American Journal of Public Health reported that in the year 2005 there were 45,000 deaths in the U.S. associated with lack of health insurance. That's nearly 10 times the number of soldiers who died during the entire Iraq war. That number of people dying needlessly because of untreated illness would be tragic in a third world country. This is not only a tragedy; it's a travesty in the world's richest country.
As much as I dislike Obamacare, if it is repealed there will be no political will to fix our health care system. It's been 40 years since President Nixon and Ted Kennedy had this debate over health care. Nixon's ideas prevailed, and then came Watergate, which destroyed health reform. Our country needs to have this debate on health care. Before the process of creating a health care bill went behind closed doors, there were many good ideas for curbing the rising cost of health care and expand coverage for all. Congress has shown that it cannot operate without a gun to its head. If Obamacare is repealed, health care reform is dead. If it takes 10 years to take up the issue of health care, that could be hundreds of thousands of American lives needlessly lost.
America deserves better. If we have this debate together we can fix this. Congress needs to stop wasting their time and our money trying to repeal the health care law and put their efforts into fixing the health care law.
Gary de Young is a Kingston resident.