When I grew up in the United States I was taught that this country is the greatest in the world. Furthermore the rest of the world was far behind the United States in every way from technology to literacy to whatever. I soon understood that the teachers were either misinformed or were intentionally misinforming the students. You see up until the age of nine my family visited their home town, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada every summer. That city looked like most cities in the United States (i.e. street cars, tall buildings, telephones, radio, etc.).
The teacher in my 4th and 5th grade classes told us that Winnipeg still had farmers bring in their crops in horse drawn wagons. I tried, in vain, to correct this ridiculous image. I realized that the students were probably being given incorrect information about many other things. It was my first understanding that teachers were not infallible. When my own mother became a teacher, as I entered college, I knew my earlier suspicions had been confirmed.
Now I find that another “fact” about the United States is called into question. Conservative talk radio show hosts keep telling us that we have the best health care in the world. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States government has a web site that provides mortality table for every country in the world. Our country is in 50th place out of a total of 224. Macau is in first place and Japan is in 3rd. Canada is in 8th place. Isn’t Canada the country most criticized for its “socialized” medicine? Oh yes, that’s the country that still uses horse drawn wagons to bring their crops into the towns to sell at markets.
Oh, wait minute those CIA figures are all estimates. President Obama has probably influenced the results of that survey. The problem is that every other web site places the United States well below Canada and below many other countries in 36th to 50th place.
The reality is that 45 million Americans are not covered by any health plan. Arguments that no one is turned away from an emergency room, does not mean they are covered by a plan. No plan means that you only go to the doctor when it is an emergency. The consequence is the individual pays the full fee for every visit and those visits are more likely than not to an ER.
Have you gone to an ER when you are covered by a plan? My daughter had chest pains that lasted for half a day. She thought she was having a heart attack. She has Blue Cross medical insurance. It’s a plan that requires her to pay 100% of the first $3,500 of annual medical fees. Her cost for that visit was over $1,100.00. If you do not have any insurance plan the ER will charge you an even higher rate and payment is due immediately.
Do I support abandoning our employer provided insurance system? NO! The objective is to provide coverage for every American. That probably means some type of Medicaid system. How will that be accomplished without destroying the employer based system? That’s the trillion dollar question.
Coast Contact 