MUST READ - "What does the rest of the world know that we don't?" Lessons In Health Care

Subject: MUST READ - "What does the rest of the world know that we don't?" Lessons In Health Care
Message:

This interactive chart and story does a great job of comparing the U.S. side by side with other industrial countries. Unfortunately, it is rare to see such side by side comparisons on cable news, and we only hear these references from folks like President Obama, whose comments are then simply placed side by side with a Republican lie, as if these facts were debatable. Here is the interactive chart:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32897230/ns/health-health_c... /

Non-interactive version:
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Here is the story:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32898477/ns/health-health_care

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We are 37th! We are 37th! No, this is not the cheer to be heard this week at a Notre Dame football pep rally. Rather, it is, according to the last rankings done by the World Health Organization, the chant appropriate for the U.S. health care system.

The pressure is building to do something about our broken system.

President Obama says he will not back down — we have to reform our system before more Americans die prematurely or go broke.

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus has put forward his Obama-lite plan, which abandons the option of a government-run basic insurance option competing against the private market to get coverage for everyone. Instead, Baucus calls for tax credits for small business, the end of underwriting and a mishmash of government-subsidized insurance plans — co-ops to make health care affordable for all.

The Republicans continue to wring their hands at the prospect of a trillion dollars being poured into a reform plan at a time when government debt has reached the nearly incalculable stage.

Meanwhile, the rest of the world is watching to see if we will really finally do what nearly all of them did decades ago — provide health insurance for everyone. The French, Swedes, British, Canadians, Taiwanese, Singaporese, Dutch, Germans, Spaniards and Italians cannot believe that we plod on year after year with exploding costs and hordes of uninsured.

So what do they know that we don't?

First, we spend more money to insure fewer people than our peer-group nations. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, we are spending twice as much or more than other comparable countries around the globe. Those spending less per person include Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Japan, Singapore — well you get the idea — while covering everyone in their country.

And, the cost gap is getting worse. Our rate of inflation for health care costs is the fastest growing among rich nations on the planet. If you earn more money in the years to come at least half of it will go to cover your out-of-pocket health care costs if the inflation rate is not slowed. Things are so out of control that we have a form of bankruptcy unheard of anywhere else in the world — the inability to cover medical costs is tied to more than 60 percent of all personal bankruptcies in America.

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Those dumb countries...the best way to help your people is to let them die.

Living in one of those backward countries i froth at the mouth daily despising the fact that i have free quality universal health care coverage....Damn government...Now i will live at least 10 years longer so i can continue to despise them for the trouble.