The US health system disaster

BY ALISON DELLIT

The US-style deregulated health-care system, with no universal guarantee
of care, is what awaits Australia if the federal government has its way.
That would be a disaster.

Despite it’s so-called “efficient” system of managed care, in which
private health corporations provide a “comprehensive” service to insurance
companies’ clients, the US spends twice as much per person on health as
does Australia. This is despite one in five people — a total of 50 million
— having no health insurance cover. Another 60 million are under-insured.

Twenty per cent of New York’s children have no insurance — and hospitals
will not treat them. In many cases, even children with insurance have been
denied treatment at a hospital because they had no identification on them
to prove it.

Personal health problems are the biggest cause of bankruptcies in the
US.

Those who get treatment are short-changed because the objective of private
companies is to boost profits by cutting costs. As a result, treatment
is second-rate. One medical firm in 1997 glibly announced that a masectomy
was a “day procedure" — recommending oral pain killers and the training
of family members to drain blood from the wound.

Members of many US insurance schemes must get their fund’s approval
before they visit an emergency ward. They must describe their symptoms
over the phone to a bean-counter who decides if the company will pay for
medical attention!

From Green Left Weekly, July 24, 2002.

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From GLW issue 501