AlterNet: Americans Pay More to Die Earlier -- Why Is Our Health Care System So Screwed Up?

Americans Pay More to Die Earlier -- Why Is Our Health Care System So Screwed Up?

By Brad Reed, AlterNet. Posted September 28, 2009.

Because it was created by Dr. Frankenstein and Satan? Actually, the truth is far less comforting.




Editor's note: This is the first in a series looking at our uniquely dysfunctional health care system.

There are times when it's comforting to imagine that at some point in our history Satan hired Dr. Frankenstein to help him stitch together our health care system.

You can picture the Dark Lord standing over the good doctor in his underground lab barking orders for creating the most insane and irrational health care system in the industrialized world.

"It must cost more per person than any other health care system, and it must leave tens of millions uninsured!" Satan cackled. "It must rely on private markets that give most people no choice in who covers them! It must produce hundreds of thousands of bankruptcies every year! And, and, and! It must produce a system where some patients get excessive and wasteful care, while others have to shuttle off to emergency rooms just to receive primary care treatment! Mwah-ha-ha!"

The reason I consider this scenario to be "comforting" is because it's far less depressing than the actual truth, which is that our medical system has been haphazardly pieced together over the last century almost by accident.

After all, even the most dedicated malevolent entity lacks the creative imagination to devise a system that swallows up 16 percent of our economic output on health care while still producing lower average life expectancies than most industrialized nations. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.alternet.org/politics/142811/americans_pay_more_to_die_earlier_--_why_is_our_health_care_system_so_screwed_up

Central planning was done.....is done.....by..:scared: Communists!!:scared: