America’s Healthcare system is perhaps the most corrupt and broken of all advanced societies. Universities and business are allowed to patent the results of research even if that research has been funded by the U.S. Government. This was made possible by the Bayh-Dole act of 1980. Prior to this, all government funded research results were owned by the government and thus part of the public domain. It was available to anyone. Little by little our health care has been delivered directly into the hands of corporations. The only problem with this is that corporations run for profit, and that drives up the cost. And like all corporations, those in the health care industry spend lots of money to insure their profitability.
Health insurance companies and HMOs have full time employees whose only job is to find a way to either deny claims for legitimate and needed care or try to get the money back from those who got the care or operation. Doctors are employed by those same insurance companies for the sole purpose of finding a way to deny claims. The more claim denials they produce, the higher their bonuses are. On May 30, 1996, Dr. Linda Pino testified before congress that as an employee for Humana she denied coverage for a necessary operation that caused a man’s death—and she did not get into any trouble for this act. In fact she was fast tracked to higher income and more responsibility. Insurance companies make money by not covering us and by denying coverage to us, not by providing the protection we thought we had. Because health insurance companies and HMOs have made so much money they now have such deep pockets that doctors and hospitals have been free to charge more, so costs soar.
It is not just the insurance companies. Not only are we scrutinized when we enter a hospital for proof of insurance then prioritized for treatment (or not) based upon our coverage, hospitals are now refusing to provide necessary treatments to patients if the cost of those treatments is greater than what the patient's health insurance will cover. As health costs increase this problem gets worse. As long as our health care is in the hands of corporations we will face this problem. Managers and CEOs of hospitals and insurance companies are no different than leaders of any other type of corporation. They must answer to a board of directors and show significant profits if they wish to keep their position. In fact they must show progressively increasing profit levels and must continuously come up with new and creative revenue streams or they will be replaced by someone who can. As long as profit is part of our healthcare system rising medical costs will continue to outpace inflation.
The problem is even more complex. The FDA has managed to get enacted into law that only a drug can cure disease. If you are a physician and you find that a change in diet combined with exercise can cure a particular disease, you cannot make that claim to the public no matter how many double blind studies you have conducted to find out whether or not your treatment will work. If you do make such a claim you will in all likelihood be sued by the FDA for making this claim. After all, making such a claim is illegal.
Is that how the FDA is protecting our interests? Before a new drug hits the market for consumers it must first be tested and approved by the FDA. Does this new drug have to be tested against the old drug currently being used for the same illness, disease or symptom? Surprisingly it doesn’t. The test only has to prove that the new drug is better than a placebo, which by definition is a fake. So the new drug simply must prove to be better than nothing at all. Any doctor will tell you that this is a very low standard. So now we can add the pharmaceutical companies into the mix. So considering all of these complications it is easy to see some of the reasons why our healthcare system is not working well.
There are those who would argue that without involving private enterprise there would be no impetus to provide progress. They would argue that most progress is a result of competition. In many industries that would be true. But has it proved to be the case in public education? How about with police and fire protection or our military protection? And where do we draw the line? Do we open up our national security to private and competitive armies? How about our police and fire protection? Should we introduce competition into our security infrastructure?
Many people would argue that national health care would be an unrealistic fix to our system. They refer to a national healthcare system as “socialized” medicine. By coining the word “socialized” in their argument they are using the perfect euphemism to fight the onset of national healthcare. What better phrase could they use to provoke national fear of our society evolving toward communism than to call national healthcare socialized medicine? So why isn’t America among the top ten healthiest nations in the world? Why aren’t we even in the top 25? And why is the United States the only remaining western democracy who has yet to absorb healthcare into its infrastructure? I can tell you this. The nation that ranks number one in healthcare for their population does have national healthcare. So does number two and number three.
Would creating a national healthcare system and including it as part of our infrastructure be a perfect solution? Probably not, but it would be better for our collective national health than what we have now. Do the countries that have national healthcare like Canada, France and England have a flawless healthcare system? No they don’t, but at least their citizenry is not falling victim to the never ending push for profits that Americans face. Yes, national health care must be funded from somewhere, and yes, that funding will come from our taxes. But right now many people are paying hundreds of dollars per month on prescriptions alone. Add to that the ever rising cost of health insurance and the diminishing coverage of our policies, coupled with increasing deductibles and growing maximum out of pocket expenses and what is left of the typical paycheck? It is entirely possible that although national healthcare would increase our taxes, it could increase them by less than what we are already paying—for what amounts to less than adequate care.
Health insurance companies and HMOs have full time employees whose only job is to find a way to either deny claims for legitimate and needed care or try to get the money back from those who got the care or operation. Doctors are employed by those same insurance companies for the sole purpose of finding a way to deny claims. The more claim denials they produce, the higher their bonuses are. On May 30, 1996, Dr. Linda Pino testified before congress that as an employee for Humana she denied coverage for a necessary operation that caused a man’s death—and she did not get into any trouble for this act. In fact she was fast tracked to higher income and more responsibility. Insurance companies make money by not covering us and by denying coverage to us, not by providing the protection we thought we had. Because health insurance companies and HMOs have made so much money they now have such deep pockets that doctors and hospitals have been free to charge more, so costs soar.
It is not just the insurance companies. Not only are we scrutinized when we enter a hospital for proof of insurance then prioritized for treatment (or not) based upon our coverage, hospitals are now refusing to provide necessary treatments to patients if the cost of those treatments is greater than what the patient's health insurance will cover. As health costs increase this problem gets worse. As long as our health care is in the hands of corporations we will face this problem. Managers and CEOs of hospitals and insurance companies are no different than leaders of any other type of corporation. They must answer to a board of directors and show significant profits if they wish to keep their position. In fact they must show progressively increasing profit levels and must continuously come up with new and creative revenue streams or they will be replaced by someone who can. As long as profit is part of our healthcare system rising medical costs will continue to outpace inflation.
The problem is even more complex. The FDA has managed to get enacted into law that only a drug can cure disease. If you are a physician and you find that a change in diet combined with exercise can cure a particular disease, you cannot make that claim to the public no matter how many double blind studies you have conducted to find out whether or not your treatment will work. If you do make such a claim you will in all likelihood be sued by the FDA for making this claim. After all, making such a claim is illegal.
Is that how the FDA is protecting our interests? Before a new drug hits the market for consumers it must first be tested and approved by the FDA. Does this new drug have to be tested against the old drug currently being used for the same illness, disease or symptom? Surprisingly it doesn’t. The test only has to prove that the new drug is better than a placebo, which by definition is a fake. So the new drug simply must prove to be better than nothing at all. Any doctor will tell you that this is a very low standard. So now we can add the pharmaceutical companies into the mix. So considering all of these complications it is easy to see some of the reasons why our healthcare system is not working well.
There are those who would argue that without involving private enterprise there would be no impetus to provide progress. They would argue that most progress is a result of competition. In many industries that would be true. But has it proved to be the case in public education? How about with police and fire protection or our military protection? And where do we draw the line? Do we open up our national security to private and competitive armies? How about our police and fire protection? Should we introduce competition into our security infrastructure?
Many people would argue that national health care would be an unrealistic fix to our system. They refer to a national healthcare system as “socialized” medicine. By coining the word “socialized” in their argument they are using the perfect euphemism to fight the onset of national healthcare. What better phrase could they use to provoke national fear of our society evolving toward communism than to call national healthcare socialized medicine? So why isn’t America among the top ten healthiest nations in the world? Why aren’t we even in the top 25? And why is the United States the only remaining western democracy who has yet to absorb healthcare into its infrastructure? I can tell you this. The nation that ranks number one in healthcare for their population does have national healthcare. So does number two and number three.
Would creating a national healthcare system and including it as part of our infrastructure be a perfect solution? Probably not, but it would be better for our collective national health than what we have now. Do the countries that have national healthcare like Canada, France and England have a flawless healthcare system? No they don’t, but at least their citizenry is not falling victim to the never ending push for profits that Americans face. Yes, national health care must be funded from somewhere, and yes, that funding will come from our taxes. But right now many people are paying hundreds of dollars per month on prescriptions alone. Add to that the ever rising cost of health insurance and the diminishing coverage of our policies, coupled with increasing deductibles and growing maximum out of pocket expenses and what is left of the typical paycheck? It is entirely possible that although national healthcare would increase our taxes, it could increase them by less than what we are already paying—for what amounts to less than adequate care.
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