American Health System

[irishbobcat]

How the American Health System got sick

July 29, 2008


New post at "Global Labor Strategies"

DOCTOR WALL STREET: How the American Health Care System Got So Sick
Normally the GLS Blog writes about issues that have a global
dimension. But GLS staff regularly work on national and local issues
as well.  We wanted to give our readers a window into some of this
work, so below is a newly released pamphlet, entitled DOCTOR WALL
STREET: How the American Health Care System Got So Sick, prepared by
GLS staff member Jeremy Brecher and first published in Z Magazine.  An
abstract and the pamphlet's introduction are below. Download the full
pamphlet here.

ABSTRACT: DOCTOR WALL STREET: How the American Health Care System Got
So Sick

Few people know the real truth about how the American healthcare
system came to be the way it is.  They know the system has a lot of
problems, but they feel it must be the way it is for good reasons.
They are wary of reform because they fear attempts to fix the system
might put what they already have in jeopardy.  DOCTOR WALL STREET: How
the American Health Care System Got So Sick is a short (3200 word)
easy-to-read pamphlet providing a unique historical account, based on
recent scholarship, of how the American healthcare system got the way
it is.  It's a story of private interests – ranging from colonial era
physicians to today's drug corporations and private hospital chains –
who shaped the system to serve their own greed and self-interest, not
just patients' health. But it also shows that, when people have spoken
up forcefully, they have forced the system to provide healthcare to
wider and wider circles of Americans.  This pamphlet provides
knowledge that will arm Americans in their contemporary struggle to
provide good healthcare to all.

Introduction

When ordinary Americans seek care for their health, they come up
against a most peculiar system.

The U.S. has some of the most advanced medical science in the world.
It spends more of its resources on health care than any other country
in the world.   Yet Americans' health is rated near the bottom of
developed countries.  In some of the poorest countries in the world
people live longer, and fewer die in infancy, than in the U.S.
Americans spend nearly twice as much as Japanese on health care, but
Japanese live on average four years longer.

The American health care system spends one-third of its cost on
paperwork, waste, and profit over and above the cost of actually
providing health care.  Yet nearly one-third of Americans are without
health insurance over the course of a year.   In all other developed
countries, more than 85% of citizens have health coverage under public
programs.

The American health care system is so complex that even experts – let
alone ordinary people trying to find care for themselves and their
loved ones -- are unable to fully understand it.  It is highly
bureaucratic.  This "system" is balkanized into medical fiefdoms,
making it difficult to access the care and caregivers you want and to
maintain continuity of care.  People who have good health benefits in
one company or state are afraid to change jobs or locations because
they will lose their health benefits.

The American health care system is full of inequalities.  People who
work for one company may have high quality insurance while those who
work for a similar company have none.  People who would have Medicaid
insurance in one state are denied it in another.  While on average 70
percent of Americans have private health coverage, 50 percent of
African Americans and 60 percent of Hispanics don't.

The quality of care provided by the system is uneven.  While health
care personnel are often regarded as excellent both by patients and by
independent evaluators, they are subject to constant pressure and
speedup.  And people are often refused treatment they need by managed
care officials who are not even doctors.

Despite its high cost to individuals, employers, and society, this
system leaves many people feeling desperately insecure.  They worry:
What will happen to me if I get sick?

This pamphlet tries to answer the question: How did the American
health care system get the way it is?  It aims to makes the work of
scholars who have studied the system's history accessible for ordinary
people who are trying to navigate the health care system – and to fix
it.

The American health care system is incompressible if we try to
understand it as a way to meet Americans' need for health care.  But
it becomes easier to understand when we recognize that it was not
designed primarily by or for the people who were likely to need health
care.  Rather it was constructed by private interests who aimed to
shape the system for their own benefit.  At various times those
interests include employers, doctors and other medical professionals,
insurance companies, unions, and profit and non-profit health service
providers.  The peculiar system we inherit today reflects their
struggles with each other and with the public interest.

But if private interests have shaped the health care system, why does
it protect ordinary people at all?  In the background of this story is
a hidden reality.  For a century, the American people have
increasingly believed that health care should be should be guaranteed
as a basic human right and demanded that it be available for all
Americans.  Doctors, employers, and politicians have all had to pursue
their interests by tacking against this powerful wind.

When the people have spoken up forcefully, the health care system has
been pushed toward better meeting their needs.  It has happened before
and it can happen again.
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That's why I support Single-Payer Health Care.

WRITE-IN
DENNIS SPISAK FOR CONGRESS
Green Party Candidate for Ohio's 6th District

Renewable Energy Green/Blue Collars Jobs
Single-Payer Affordable Healthcare
Economic Fairness/Quality Education
Clear and Fair Elections with Paper Ballots

Campaign Site:  Http://votespisak.org/electspisak.tripod.com