Healthcare, American style: Spending more to be less healthy

// added September 08, 2009 // 14 comments //
Image...
WakeUpPeople
As a reference guide for those watching the end stages of the president’s toughest fight, Salon has gathered some of the key statistics. Obviously, healthcare, and its associated economic and policy debates, have complexity far beyond what a list of statistics can show. Still, the following data, ranging from insurance coverage to public opinion to legislative politics to health outcomes, paint a fair picture of the state of medicine in America.

Americans insured through employer (2007): 159,311,384 (53.4 percent)

Americans insured individually (2007): 14,541,782 (4.9 percent)

Americans insured through Medicaid (2007): 39,296,423 (13.2 percent)

Americans insured through Medicare (2007): 36,155,452 (12.1 percent)

Americans otherwise on public insurance (2007): 3,253,122 (1.1 percent)

Americans uninsured: 45,657,193 (15.3 percent)

Americans uninsured at the time of President Clinton’s reform proposal: Approximately 37 million

Number of health insurance company mergers in past 13 years: Over 400

Percentage of state health insurance markets that are "highly concentrated" under Department of Justice guidelines: 94

Percentage increase in profits at 10 of the country's largest insurers, 2000 to 2007: 428

~Political landscape~

Democratic senators for a public option: 45

Democratic senators against a public option: 1

Democratic senators open to a deal: 13

Vacancies: 1

Republican senators against a public option: 38

Republican senators for a public option: 0

Republican senators open to a deal: 2

Percentage of poll respondents in favor of “President Obama’s plan to reform healthcare”: 48

Percentage in opposition: 51

Percentage who believe that problems with healthcare system “will eventually affect most Americans”: 65

Percentage who think most Americans “will continue to get good care”: 32

Percentage who would “feel more secure” with current healthcare system: 52

Percentage who would “feel more secure” with President Obama’s proposal: 44

Percentage in favor of “a public health insurance option administered by the federal government that would compete with plans offered by private health insurance companies”: 55

Percentage opposed: 41

Amount spent by the healthcare industry daily on lobbying: At least $1.4 million

~Health spending and outcomes~

Average health insurance premium for family coverage in 1999: $5,791

Average health insurance premium for family coverage in 2008: $12,680

National per capita spending on healthcare, 2007

*United States: $7,290
*Norway: $4,763
*Switzerland: $4,417
*Luxembourg: $4,162
*Canada: $3,895
*Austria: $3,761
*France: $3,601
*Germany: $3,588
*Netherlands: $3,527
*Belgium: $3,462
*OECD average: $2,964

Life expectancy for these nations, 2006

*United States: 78.1
*Norway: 80.6
*Switzerland: 81.7
*Luxembourg: 79.4
*Canada: 80.7
*Austria: 79.9
*France: 80.7
*Germany: 79.8
*Netherlands: 79.8
*Belgium: 79.5

Percentage of population classified as obese, 2006

*United States: 34.3
*Norway: 9.0 (2005)
*Switzerland: 8.1 (2007)
*Luxembourg: 20.4
*Canada: 15.4 (2007)
*Austria: 12.4
*France: 10.5
*Germany: 13.6 (2005)
*Netherlands: 11.3
*Belgium: 12.4 (2004)

Infant mortality, deaths per 1,000 live births, 2006

*United States: 6.7
*Norway: 3.2
*Switzerland: 4.4
*Luxembourg: 2.5
*Canada: 5.0
*Austria: 3.6
*France: 3.8
*Germany: 3.8
*Netherlands: 4.4
*Belgium: 3.7

Amenable mortality rate, preventable deaths per 100,000 people, 2002-2003

*United States: 110
*Norway: 80
*Switzerland: N/A
*Luxembourg: N/A
*Canada: 77
*Austria: 84
*France: 65
*Germany: 90
*Netherlands: 82
*Belgium: N/A

Estimated number of deaths in the United States from lack of health insurance, 2006: 22,000
  1. groups:
    News,   Current Tonight,   Progressive America,   Current Democrats,   2 more
  2. tags:
    News and Politics US News US Politics Health Care Reform

14 comments // Healthcare, American style: Spending more to be less healthy

  • mgerlach22
    • 0
      mgerlach22  
    • It's no wonder Americans don't have the life expectancy of other nations. A quick look at one statistic will provide proof that Americans don't live as long because Americans lead much unhealthier lifestyles. 34% of America is obese. This isn't a healthcare issue. This is a lifestyle issue. Quit using propoganda to push a political agenda.

      Get Americans off their fat asses and out of the drive thru lanes, and our health care numbers would increase automatically.

    • 5 months ago
  • Ragan
    • 0
      Ragan  
    • There is no complexity in Health plans, Just give we the people the same health plan that the Congress and the Senate have. Now is that too difficult to figure out? Those people in Washington are not one damned bit better than we the people.

    • 5 months ago
  • Tikbalang
    • 0
      Tikbalang  
    • America will never have a single payer healthcare system because Americans do not trust their own freely elected government. Americans distrust and fear the officials they freely elected. Instead, Americans trust insurance companies. It is okay for an insurance company to deny a policy because of a pre-existing condition, to delay payment on a claim while the patient gets sicker, to refuse a claim while the patient dies, or to pay a small part of the claim resulting in huge copays that will bankrupt the policy holder. Americans call this system free choice and free enterprise because they can chose the insurance company that kills or bankrupts them. Americans like having a choice. Americans believe that in a single payer system their own freely elected government will “take over” healthcare. This will result in “death panels” of politicians deciding who will live and die. Americans prefer the existing system where insurance CEOs decide who lives and dies. Single payer means no competition and that is the same as socialism. Even though converting to single payer would save $350 billion in paperwork costs alone Americans prefer competition. Competition is good and has done so much for healthcare already. The price of your healthcare insurance keeps going down every month because of all the competition and free enterprise and the hard work of the CEOs of the insurance companies. Americans believe their own freely elected government is incapable of handling so big a business as healthcare. A big company like General Motors, AIG, or Enron would be far better at managing healthcare than the government. They also fear their tax dollars will be spent inappropriately. This could result in a band aid being given to a person who did not pay taxes. That would be socialism if that happened. It only takes one band aid for democracy to perish and socialism to take over. I don’t understand why we are even debating this issue when every American knows we have the best healthcare system in the world. Canadians and Europeans are standing in lines outside of every American hospital to get treated here. Nothing needs to change. Unless you happen to have a cure for stupidity.

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Tikbalang:

      American doctors back in the 1970's -I remember it well- they fought tooth and nail with every lobbyist they could hire to prevent chiropractry from being accepted. After they lost that battle they fought acupuncture, again tooth & nail with every lobbyist they could hire.

      In northern Europe there's some clinics where they use Heat and Nutrition to kill every cancer cell in a patient's body not just where they find them but throughout their body. Why isn't it here? If we have this "greatest healthcare in the world" as you say we have why do they fight like scalded stupid dogs to keep us sick for?!

      hahahaha Maybe I'm older than you. I've sure as hell analyzed this better.

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Tikbalang:

      I don't like college-educated people using my illnesses as leverage a hammer against me to drive me into bankruptcy. I beat a massive cancer that took over the entire right chest from the exact middle of my sternum over and to survive it I did NOT go to doctors.

      Instead I poisoned the cancer with a flooding of nutrition products and antioxidants that the stupid cancer cells sopped up like bread soaks up chocolate milk and the cancer cells died, KILLED THEMSELVES FROM GLUTTONY. They died of internal acid burn.

      Had I went to these ignoramuses here who were bound and determined to make every one of my complaints into a bipolar issue, or like I needed them for company, I would have been buried back in August 2006.

      You can take your claims of greatest healthcare in the world and talk it somewhere else buddy because I rode the white water and I know better. They are DELIBERATELY fighting the cancer advances I discovered and the ones that have been discovered in Europe. Europeans laugh at us. They know our healthcare system is killing us, killing our babies, killing our old people, and charging us down to our drawers while putting on this big act struggling to save us within the artificial boundaries they have constructed.

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Tikbalang:

      Furthermore, microscopic viruses & bacteria are easily killed by specific radio frequencies and even magnetism if two magnets are placed on opposite sides of the wrist. There's a world of knowledge and HEALING being kept from Americans... so these yahoos can keep using chemotherapy poisons and scalpels.

      I even figured out back in 1996 how to use criss-crossed frequencies aimed to intersect together under the skin and overheat the water content of fat cells, causing them to swell enough to bust their outer membranes. I SOLVED OBESITY IN 1996 and there's plenty people who know it, just not Americans. It's kept from them. I showed how to destroy tumors under the skin w/out even breaking the skin, just like in STAR TREK.

      I'll guarantee you Obama knows all this stuff. He knows about all my zero pollution engines and other discoveries as well. He doesn't have 30-some "czars" and sitting there stupid. The reign of the doctor class is coming to an end. They'll be doing good to get a free house and meals like ministers soon, very soon.

      They can go learn to drive a truck like ever'body else. Let them eat from the same plate they made my family eat from by keeping me untreated and ill for 20+ years. What goes around comes around friend and I can tell ya for a fact it ain't gonna feel good. It's gonna hurt real bad. Get used to pain.

      The rest of us pee ons out here are going to get used to riding on the top of the camel for a while => http://current.com/items/90879038_prospectors-health-tonic-tricks-they-didnt-hav...

    • 5 months ago
  • occhipij
    • 0
      occhipij  
    • health insurance, and spending on healthcare doesn't ever create healthy people. Most regular people need to practice personal responsibility, and pass up the classic triple at Wendy's...then we will be spending less in the future on gastric bypasses, and meds for cholesterol, blood sugar, and blood pressure.

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Obesity is not a food addiction near as much as it is a food additive corruption. Real healthcare would provide dental and would be releasing patients from the hospitals after being given a complimentary modified abdominoplasty to leave the hospital to a better life, not the life they had, the life that caused them to be where they were, under a hospital knife.

    • 5 months ago
  • Leonidis
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      Depends on how you define obese. By the standard "I carry my weight well" I might squeak by considering my health tonic has lowered my resting pulse to under 60 beats per minute. But according to the Body Mass Index I register about 43 I think... a situation I could easily go on to correct if I had had the medical assistance I outlined in my first post above.

      Doctors know and have published it that giving people liposuction or other fat reduction surgeries gives them a tremendous hand up to remain at a lower weight. That's a proven fact. But, people will point to the few who gorge themselves uncontrollably and gain weight.

      They use the few to justify keeping fat surgeries elective and cosmetic so they can escape providing it paid by insurance providers. Well, d*mn them. I'm not those other people the few brainless people who gorge after bariatric surgery they are not me. I have held my present weight for over two decades after a really bad accident I was in... so I have shown my ability to stay a certain weight.

      I don't wear everybody else's shoes. I have Medicaid paying my Medicare and also Humana catching the other remaining bill but they are both useless to me for what I need, totally garbage useless trash. I took my health care into my own hands recently and left the rest of them behind => http://www.newpath4.com/prospectorstonictargetingsolutionhowtomicrowavehighdocto...

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Gravity_Man:

      I don't mean to sound like I'm being short with you Leonidus, but after my accident in 1989 my foot was crushed, and the ankle so I was unable to do any aerobics or calisthenics. Instead of helping me with my foot pain the doctors around here converted it into a mind problem because they also had found out I was bipolar.

      So when they refused to DO THEIR D^MN JOB and help me walk and run, they caused me to go through circulatory system degradation that took me into arteriosclerotoc disease, atherosclerotic disease, three angina attacks, a major heart infarction heart attack and oh yeah, my heart completely stopped twice.

      Which could have all been avoided and I could have returned to Work and returned to providing a paycheck to my family members but no, fat surgeries that would have gotten WEIGHT OFF MY DAMAGED FOOT was called Elective & Cosmetic.

      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.
      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.
      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.
      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.
      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.
      This healthcare system is the spawn of Satan.

    • 5 months ago
  • Gravity_Man
  • Gravity_Man
    • 0
      Gravity_Man  
    • Excuse me? Those numbers are all wrong from the gitgo. Healthcare that does not include dental + excludes fat surgeries as being elective is false. Untreated dental problems allows the human mouth to be a primary introduction of disease organisms to get in the bloodstream, attack people's soft flesh organs.

      Obesity ~if it was treated as a medical problem instead of moral like alcoholism was treated in 1955~ a whole host of cascading disease syndromes would be brought to a halt... syndromes that account for billions expended later for operations and kidney dialysis.

      Not to mention the damages done to people trying desperately to treat their obesity on their own with OTC dangerous weightloss pills that also then contributes to even more kidney damage requiring even more kidney dialysis. The snowball of death and debt is totally within our realm to stop and control the beast => http://current.com/items/90879038_prospectors-health-tonic-tricks-they-didnt-hav...

    • 5 months ago

Add your comment

current videos