In the Ambulance Together

[fencesitter]

http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/opedne_todd_huf_070706_in_the_ambulance_tog.htm

By Todd Huffman, MD

It's no secret that the American health care system is sick. So sick that we spend more, twice as much more per person, on health care as citizens of other advanced countries, yet we get less, and are less healthy besides.

The U.S. does not have the world's best care. It has the costliest.

Our health care system is so dysfunctional and unjust that one in six Americans, including some nine million children, go without health care twelve months out of the year. One in three Americans below age 65 lack private or public health insurance for all or part of the year. Six of ten of these uninsured adults even hold full-year, full-time jobs.

And, not surprisingly, since 2001 the number of Americans falling through the cracks of our broken health care system has been steadily rising.

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Having health care benefits does not necessarily guarantee peace of mind. Premiums are soaring, while benefits are shrinking. Millions upon millions of working Americans with health insurance have benefits so insufficient that they are not able to meet the financial consequences of major illness, which has become the nation's leading cause of personal bankruptcy.

As a full-time primary care physician practicing in a blue-collar community in Oregon, daily and nightly I listen as families tell the stories, the symptoms, of our sickly health care system.

I hear stories of friends and congregations holding garage sales and charity breakfasts to help a family with medical expenses; of uninsured families bartering skilled services for medical care; and of families with health insurance but living paycheck to paycheck, unable to fill prescriptions, complete recommended treatment, or even see a doctor when ill because their co-pays are too high.

All this in a community neither especially poor, nor without good jobs.

More......

[MasonJar]

1. Saw Sicko last night and it is small wonder that the health-care

industry is worried. Amazing revelations! Go see it asap!

[fencesitter]

2. I'm afraid if go see Sicko...

It'l just make me madder than I already am at our health insurance system.