In the U.S. a crisis is occurring……health reform.  The United States is the only industrialized country in the world without a universal health insurance system.1  And yet…..the U.S. health care spending is significantly more on health care than other countries in the world.  The U.S. spends approximately $2 trillion per year, or $6,697 per person. 9

 

In 2006, the U.S. census reported that 46 million Americans (recently revised  to 47 million) have no health insurance.2   Then…..

·         More than 9 million children lack health insurance in America.4

·         Eighteen thousand people die each year because they are uninsured.

Re. the health of its citizens:  The United States, the richest country in the world,  ranks 37th in the world, just above Slovenia!
 

View:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dT_2GjSkzHE

 

Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. Three-quarters of those filings are

people with health insurance.7

 

It is difficult to condone the U.S. healthcare system primarily based on private insurance.  .Administrative costs account for 31 percent of all health care expenditures in the United States. The average overhead for U.S. private health insurers is 11.7 percent; for Medicare, it is 3.6 percent; for Canada’s national health insurance program, it is 1.3 percent.10

 

 

According to the UN Human Development Report, while the United States leads the

world in spending on health care, “countries spending substantially less than the US have 2healthier populations.… The infant mortality rate for the U.S. is now higher than for many other industrial countries.”11

 

·         A baby born in El Salvador has a better chance of surviving than a baby in Detroit.

·         The infant mortality rate in Detroit is 15.5, compared to El Salvador's rate of 9.7.12

·         Canadians live three years longer on average than those in the U.S..13

·         A study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that older

Americans are significantly less healthy than their British counterparts - we have

more diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, lung disease and cancer. Even the poorest Brits can expect to live longer than the richest Americans.14

·         Cubans have a lower infant mortality rate than the United States and according to the U.N. Human Development Report, a longer average lifespan.15

 

Over the next decade, the federal government will give the drug and health care

industries an estimated $822 billion as a result of the 2003 enactment of Medicare Part D (the Medicare prescription drug plan).16

 

 

There are four times as many health care lobbyists in Washington as there are members of Congress.17

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcZx8Ft4JE4

 

Ninety percent of Americans believe the American health care system needs fundamental changes or needs to be completely rebuilt. Two-thirds of Americans believe the federal government should guarantee universal health care for all citizens.18

 

 

These are alarming statistics for such a rich country.  When faced with the extreme profit motive inserted into health care plans, how should Christians react in the U.S.?  Should health care be considered a right or be available only to the wealthiest?

 

And how should all the industrial nations react to the lack of health care in the poorest countries in the world.?    Should we preach about it? 

 

“Of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.” –Martin Luther King, Jr.

 

 

NOTES

1 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development

Report, UNDP, 2005; Universal Health Insurance in the United States: Reflections on the Past, the Present, and the

Future. American Journal of Public Health; http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1447684

2 http://www.census.gov/prod/2006pubs/p60-231.pdf This figure was recently revised downward to 44.8 million due

to a computer programming error.

3 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development

Report, UNDP, 2005.

4 The Great Divide: When Kids Get Sick, Insurance Matters, Families USA Publication No. 07-102, February 2007.

5 Insuring America’s Health: Principles and Recommendations, Institute of Medicine, January 2004.

http://www.iom.edu/?id=19175

6 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development

Report, UNDP, 2005

7 “Illness and Injury as Contributors to Bankruptcy,” Himmelstein et al, Health Affairs, February 2, 2005.

8 Catlin, A, C. Cowan, S. Heffler, et al, “National Health Spending in 2005.” Health Affairs 26:1 (2006).

9 OECD, in Figures 2006-2007 Health Spending and Resources.

http://ocde.p4.siteinternet.com/publications/doifiles/012006061T02.xls.

10 Steffie Woolhandler, M.D., M.P.H., Terry Campbell, M.H.A., and David U. Himmelstein, M.D., Costs of Health

Care Administration, N Engl J Med 2003;349:768-75.

11 The Impact of Health Insurance Coverage on Health Disparities in the United States, Human Development

Report, UNDP, 2005.

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