One of the continuing lies that the GOP and Tea Party lunatics disseminate is that Americans will lose the best health care system in the world if the Affordable Health Care Act isn't repealed. America has the best health care in the world only if one is tremendously wealth or is currently employed by a company that provides a Rolls Royce health insurance plan. The rest of us? We are just one step away for no coverage if we lose our job or an insurance carrier decides to drop us because we might actually file significant claims under our existing plan. Medical bills remain one of the primary reasons individuals are forced into bankruptcy. When one of my children had a catastrophic illness over a decade ago, even with a top of the line health insurance plan ALL of our savings were wiped out and it took me another four years to pay off the balance of the bills. People truly do not understand how vulnerable they are under the system the GOP wants to maintain. They also do not understand that compared to other modern nations, we pay far more for health care yet are in worse health and die younger. NBC News looks at reports that reveal the lie of the GOP's claims. Here are excerpts:
House Speaker John Boehner trashed president Obama’s health care plan again Thursday, accusing him of wrecking the world’s best health care system. “This is going to destroy the best health care delivery system in the world,” Boehner said Thursday morning before President Obama announced a plan to fix the fallout over canceled health insurance policies. But is it really?
Two studies out this week — and studies going back 15 years or longer — show quite the opposite. Americans pay more per capita for health care than people in any other industrialized country. In return, we are sicker, die younger and are unhappier with the system.
The Commonwealth Fund, which does research on health care and health reform, has shown year after year in its regular surveys that Americans spend a lot more on health care than anyone else. Right now it’s $2.7 trillion a year — that’s $8,508 a head, compared to $5,669 per person in Norway and $5,643 in Switzerland, the next-highest-spending countries. New Zealanders spend just $3,182 per person.
And Americans aren't getting more or better care for that money. The U.S. has the eighth-lowest life expectancy in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which groups developed nations.
In the latest survey of more than 20,000 people from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Britain and the U.S., Commonwealth researchers found that 37 percent of Americans went without recommended care, did not see a doctor when sick, or failed to fill prescriptions because of costs, compared to as few as 4 percent to 6 percent in Britain and Sweden.
And 23 percent of U.S. adults either had serious problems paying medical bills or were unable to pay them, compared to fewer than 13 percent of adults in France and 6 percent or fewer in Britain, Sweden, and Norway, Commonwealth reported Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs.
“The U.S. spends more on health care than any other country, but what we get for these significant resources falls short in terms of access to care, affordability, and quality,” said Dr. David Blumenthal, president of the Commonwealth Fund, Americans also wait longer to see primary care doctors; 76 percent in Germany said they could get a same or next-day appointment, and 63 percent in the Netherlands, compared to 48 percent in the U.S. Only Canada scored worse, with 41 percent saying they could.
And the U.S. has more patients than anywhere else using the emergency room.
Even the U.S. Institute of Medicine says U.S. health care is a mess, with tens of thousands of Americans dying from medical errors and drug overdoses, and with the system wasting $750 billion in 2009.
And on Tuesday, a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association looked at improvements in the U.S. health care system. The upshot? They’re not really keeping up with the rest of the world.
This is the "best health care delivery system in the world"? I think not and its time John Boehner and others in the GOP stop blatantly lying to Americans.
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