Tom Paine - America's Third World

[malaise]

Here's Tom Paine on America's Third World

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050921/americas_third_world.php

In the section on health care, the UNDP report notes that the United States leads the world in healthcare spending, allocating twice the world average. Despite this huge investment, the report’s authors assert that public health indicators in the U.S. are “marred by deep inequalities linked to income, health insurance coverage, race, ethnicity, geography and—critically—access to care.” In the United States, the infant mortality rate is now higher than in many other industrial countries. Malaysia’s average income is one-quarter that of the U.S., but it has the same infant mortality rate. The Indian state of Kerala has an urban infant death rate lower than that for African Americans in the nations’ capital of Washington, D.C.

[applegrove]

1. That is because private health care is not even as cost effective

as public. Tis the nature of public health care that preventive health is the priority.

Private Health care is just a total crap shoot in the U.S. Every other Western nation in the world has public health care of some form. Cause it is 1) more efficient (keeps costs down) 2) more equitable (everyone has it)

Just one of the many bugaboos that make for a situation where government should step in and take over. Some issues are solved much better by government monopoly or regulations than the private market will accomplish.