New York Times columnist Paul Krugman, author of the blog: The Conscience of a Liberal, attacks the excuses put forward by apologists for the current health care system, putting the lie to arguments used to resist health care reform in this country. The top four excuses he cites are:
1) No insurance, no problem–in using this excuse, apologists, like George Bush, claim that everyone has access to health care, just by going to the emergency room. But we all know that people who only have emergency room access for health care are one of the reasons why we spend more on health care than any other nation, yet have one of the lowest life expectancies among industrialized nations. People who go to the emergency room as their standard care burden emergency room doctors, leading to exhaustion-related medical malpractice.
2) Bad habits lead to bad health–According to apologists the low life expectancy is due to obesity rates in this country, but most definitive studies show that obesity and other lifestyle-related problems are actually a small fraction of our expenses. Furthermore, many other industrialized nations are suffering from obesity issues as well.
3) It’s better than it was–Simply because health insurance has improved doesn’t mean we should just grin and bear it. Nor does it make any sense to make this argument when all the other countries we are comparing to have shown similar (actually better) improvement in their health care systems.
4) Socialized medicine!–(Well-paid) advocates for the US health system are full of horror stories about the evils of socialized medicine. Did you hear the one about the doctor who failed to diagnose a 32-pound cyst in a woman complaining of abdominal pain? What about the one where the 22-year-old died of pain medication overdose after knee surgery? Or the one where the woman went in to have her tubes tied and ended up losing her hands and feet? Oh, no, wait, those are all horror stories related to our medical system!
In the end, the most damning evidence in this whole affair is that we spend 6 times as much on administrative costs for health care than other advanced countries, but get little in return. More doctors and less administrators could lead to a huge decrease in malpractice lawsuits in this country.
If you or someone you love has been the victim of our poorly-run health care system, contact the Law Firm of Barry G. Doyle to seek relief.
