ANOTHER REASON WHY OBAMACARE IS NECESSARY … NOW
Posted by Andrew Roman on August 20, 2009
And so it is that in the United States of America – where the health care delivery system is so deficient, so defective, so in need of a thorough reconditioning – the life expectancy of Americans has reached its highest level ever, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In fact, there has been a ten year upward trend..
From the CDC website:
U.S. life expectancy reached nearly 78 years (77.9), and the age-adjusted death rate dropped to 760.3 deaths per 100,000 population, both records, according to the latest mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
The report, “Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2007,” was issued today by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data are based on nearly 90 percent of death certificates in the United States.
The 2007 increase in life expectancy – up from 77.7 in 2006 — represents a continuation of a trend. Over a decade, life expectancy has increased 1.4 years from 76.5 years in 1997 to 77.9 in 2007.
While heart disease and cancer remain the two leading causes of death in the United States (nearly half of all), both saw declines in their mortality rates in 2007. In fact, death rates have gone down for eight of the top fifteen causes of death – including influenza, pneumonia, diabetes and stroke.
It is important to note that two of the top fifteen leading causes of death – number five (accidents) and number 15 (homicide) – are not health related at all; and while both of those rates declined in 2007, number 11 (suicide) did not.
With all of this in mind, recall an article published by the New York Times two years ago in which they referenced an oft-quoted 2000 World Health Organization (WHO) report ranking the United States health care system 37th out of 191 nations surveyed:
There is a growing body of evidence that, by an array of pertinent yardsticks, the United States is a laggard not a leader in providing good medical care.
Of course, just a little bit of digging into the WHO report – and a subsequent report put out by the Commonwealth Fund that actually ranked the United States health care system at or near the bottom – shows that the rankings are based heavily on equity not quality. Such an approach assumes that providing health care to its citizens is the responsibility of government.
ABC’s John Stossel, in a response to the New York Times piece, wrote:
The WHO judged a country’s quality of health on life expectancy. But that’s a lousy measure of a health-care system. Many things that cause premature death have nothing do with medical care. We have far more fatal transportation accidents than other countries. That’s not a health-care problem.
Similarly, our homicide rate is 10 times higher than in the U.K., eight times higher than in France, and five times greater than in Canada.
When you adjust for these “fatal injury” rates, U.S. life expectancy is actually higher than in nearly every other industrialized nation.
Diet and lack of exercise also bring down average life expectancy.
The lines aren’t exactly extending around the country with people waiting to leave the United States for countries like Andorra and Columbia – both of whom ranked higher than the United States.
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Sammy said
All obama will do is outsource anyways. Just think about the all the lobbyists flocking to Washington DC because of obama’s reckless over-spending of $2 TRILLION in just 6 months, which alone is increasing the National Debt by 20%.
Politicians take people’s money and reward the large corporations, in this case companies in the health care industry, since they have the money to more effectively lobby politicians. In the end smaller businesses will be hurt.
Politicians will only reward companies that will be in their best political interest. Honestly, when can you really trust politicians since they are basically professional liars, and being president just means you are the best liar of the time. Why not just give the money directly from the people to the companies and take politicians in government out of the equation?
obama is going to recklessly spend TRILLIONS of tax payers’ money just to give insurance to about 25% of those who do not have it. Over 50% of people’s income go towards taxes, just imagine how many more people will afford health care insurance if their income is almost doubled because of dramatic tax cuts.
Competition is what is needed. It lowers prices of products and services, along with developing new innovations. All of which will benefit consumers. You need to remember that monopolistic tendencies can also apply to government.
The reason why the cost of insurance is high is because politicians in government mandate insurance companies to increase their premiums to pay for ridiculous things. In addition, politicians put up regulations so that Americans are not allowed to get insurance from another state and use the coverage in their own state. This reduces competition making it more expensive for people to get insurance. On top of that medical professionals are not allowed to freely practice their profession in any US state without taking a long and tedious licensing process. This again increases the cost of medical insurance.
In the end, the problem with most economic issues is too much government intervention of the economy by politicians, who will only tend to do things for political self interest. Just like how obama nationalized GM to pander to its unions. Politicians can barely run government, yet people think they can run a multi-national auto manufacturing company?
The solution is SMALLER government, LESS spending, and LOWER taxes.