Broken Health Care in US

[THE KOD]

Friday, February 08, 2008
Health care the French way
By Miriam Falco
Managing Editor Medical News

Ever since the 2008 presidential campaign shifted into high gear last year, CNN Medical News has been taking a closer look at some of the problems in our health-care system. In our documentary "Broken Government: Health Care -- Critical Condition," which made its debut last week, Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta investigated problems with America's health care system. The program will be rebroadcast this weekend, Saturday and Sunday at 6 a.m. ET on CNN in the U.S.

The World Health Organization ranks France as having the No. 1 health-care system in the world. So last month I spent a couple of days in Paris, to catch a glimpse of how French health care works. This certainly doesn't make me an expert. But it was a very interesting experience.

Everybody in France has to have health insurance. If you can't afford it, the government helps you pay for it. If you lose your job, you don't lose your health insurance. (watch video)

I focused on the costs of having a baby in France, as an example of how it's covered by health insurance.

Dr. Laurent Mandelbrot heads the obstetrics department at Louis Mourier Hospital in Colombes, a suburb of Paris. He explained to me that in France, all prenatal care from the fifth month of pregnancy until the baby is 1 month old is free. New moms also stay in the hospital for at least four days, long enough to learn how to take care of their baby, get used to breastfeeding, get some rest. Mandelbrot says this allows doctors to detect problems early, when they might be resolved. "If people don't have access to care and it's too late (to catch a problem), that costs a lot more and it's just a terrible cost in terms of sick babies and maternal complications," Mandelbrot said.

I also met a social worker at the same hospital, Elodie Cadier-Dervaux. Her main job is to help expectant moms navigate the system, to ensure that all her medical costs are taken care of. Another part of her job is to make sure the expectant mom is taking care of herself, getting proper nutrition, vitamins etc.

Knowing that families in the U.S. can fall into serious debt if their baby is very ill at birth and their insurance doesn't cover as much as they thought it would, I wanted to get an idea of how much a family in France might pay in a similar situation.

When I met the director of France's national health insurance organization, Frederic Van Roekeghem, I gave him a hypothetical scenario: Baby is born with a serious problem, perhaps a heart defect. Baby needs surgery and has to spend a month in a neonatal intensive care unit, how much would that cost? Van Roekeghem told me the total costs would be about 30,000 to 40,000 Euros - but the parents would only pay 18 Euros. Even without doing the math (18 Euros = approx. $26), I knew that was a very low amount, but I asked him again because I thought I had misheard his answer. I think it amused him, but he repeated - 18 Euros.

It's hard to imagine that France's system could be duplicated in the U.S. - it's costly and people do pay a lot for it - approximately 21 percent of their salary goes to their version of social security, which includes mandatory health insurance, supplemental health insurance and retirement benefits. But judging by the folks I met in France, having access to health care for everyone is something they don't want to do without.
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[THE KOD]

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
It can happen to you

The Zeiglers hold baby Brooke
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent

The Number 1 cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills. As we found, it is not just the uninsured, but also the underinsured. It is also people who think they have excellent health insurance, but it is simply not enough.

Dawn and William Zeigler were living the American dream with a nice house, cars and plenty of money. When their daughter Brooke was born too early and required multiple surgeries, they never considered the cost because they thought they were covered. And, they were, at least for a while. They were amazed at how quickly the bills piled up, though. Tens of thousands of dollars a day, and soon their policy no longer provided any money. (Watch Video)

Brooke Zeigler died when she was 18 months old. Her father told me that he had to tell the doctors to stop working on her. It was the hardest thing he ever had to do in his life. The bills that arrived for nearly a million dollars may pale in comparison to losing one's child, but the Zeiglers are now at real risk of losing their dreams.

The health care debate is complicated. Again, the Zeiglers were covered, but not enough to cover little Brooke's millions of dollars of expenses. This is the reality of our broken health-care system and continues to be one of the biggest domestic issues on the minds of voters.

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[THE KOD]

Dying for lack of insurance
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent

For the past several months, we have been investigating our broken health care system. Everywhere we go, people agree it is in critical condition. As part of our research, I met Mark Windsor and I profiled him for the documentary, which airs Thursday at 11 p.m. ET. Mark tells us a very important story. He reminds us that being uninsured in this country not only means the loss of a safety net, incredible anxiety and possible bankruptcy. It could literally cost you your life.

When Mark was 27, he learned he had cancer and doctors operated on a large tumor in his neck. At that time, he had insurance and was able to get the operation. Thinking he was cured, Mark pursued a passion of his, photography. In the process, he lost the insurance he had through his job. And, the cancer came back. (Watch Video)

Now uninsured, Mark was slowly dying. At first he found doctors who would do his operations for free, but that lasted only so long. He was not eligible for potential life saving treatment because of the expense - hundreds of thousands of dollars. Now his doctors are convinced he will most likely have an abbreviated life. In a desperate measure, Mark married a woman, who was simply a good friend, at least partly so he could get insured. It may be too late. His cancer has spread to his lungs.

The United States is at a crossroads with its health care system. While men with cancer are more likely to live longer in the United States as compared with any country in the world, that provides little solace to Mark Windsor. (source: OECD)
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[THE KOD]

Thursday, January 31, 2008
Candidate health care plans
By Dr. Sanjay Gupta
Chief Medical Correspondent

As I have traveled around the country, it seems everyone is concerned about health care. More people than not think the system needs a major overhaul. An estimated 47 million Americans have no insurance. For others, it's an enormous financial burden. Families USA, a non-profit focused on affordable health care, predicts 18 million Americans under 65 will spend more than a quarter of their family income on health care this year -- and that's before taxes. And for some, the costs of medical care are catastrophic. It's the Number One cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States.

So what are the candidates proposing to do about health care?

Democratic candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama each promise they'll provide access to health care for everyone. They would do this by expanding coverage for children and Medicaid for the poor. Also, they'd require most companies to offer insurance to their workers.

The big difference: Clinton would require everyone who wasn't covered by work or the government to buy their own insurance. :scared :scared

Really , how stupid is this ?

Obama says that's unfair because buying your own insurance is so expensive. As a result, Clinton claims Obama's plan would leave out 15 million Americans. Both agree: they do not want a government run system like Canada or several European countries.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was a White House Fellow, a non-partisan appointment, in Hillary Clinton's office in 1997 and 1998 - three to four years after her health care initiative had been defeated.

Republican candidates (Watch Video) say the Clinton and Obama plans are too expensive and would add red tape to already-large bureaucracies. They're proposing a different approach. They want to increase competition among insurance companies to bring down the price of health care insurance. They also want to give individuals who buy their own health insurance tax breaks. In short, they want to use the power of the marketplace to make health care more affordable.

The challenge for the Republicans, of course, is what to do with people who still aren't covered?
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[THE KOD]

One of the longest-running debates is whether the U.S. should adopt some kind of universal coverage, such as those systems in Europe or Canada, where everyone has health care, financed mainly through taxes. Or if it should stick with the current system, which relies on voluntary efforts by employers and a private market.

Most survey respondents, 56%, said they prefer a universal system. But support for changes to the system dropped to about one-third or less when respondents were asked if they would support universal coverage if it included restrictions on the doctors or treatments they could have or if it cost them more than they're now paying in taxes or premiums.

Significant majorities of poll respondents supported ideas for more incremental, but nonetheless controversial, efforts to reduce the number of uninsured:

? 79% support requiring businesses to offer health insurance to full-time employees, and 64% said employers should be required to cover part-timers, as well.

? 65% support requiring all Americans to have health insurance, either from an employer or another source, with tax credits to help low-income people pay for it.

? 82% support expanding other government health programs such as Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program, which provides insurance to nearly 4 million children and some parents, to cover more people.

Fewer employers offer benefits

Most poll respondents recognized that it is better to have insurance than none at all.

About six in 10 told pollsters that they fear rising costs ? or a job loss ? will someday banish them from the ranks of the insured.

Bishop, 66, who gets health coverage through his wife's employer, says he was forced to retire earlier than he had expected from his research scientist job for a plastics company and is looking for a new job.

While worried about his own opportunities, Bishop says, he also fears for the country in an era that is seeing a shrinking percentage of employers offering insurance and other benefits. Last year, the percentage of people who received health insurance through their jobs was 59.5%, Census Bureau data released in August show. That's the lowest rate since 1993 and below the recent peak of 63.6% coverage in 2000.

While most larger companies offer insurance, smaller companies increasingly do not.

"No one wants to give you pension benefits or health plans or anything else these days," Bishop says. "It's a dissolving of the middle class.":scared

Nationally, nearly 16% of the population, or 46.6 million, are uninsured, according to recent Census estimates.:shrug:

"My daughter does not have any health care, and she has four little ones," says Dougherty in Texas. "If it weren't for Planned Parenthood, where she can go and get care, she would not have any medical care at all."
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[ELVIS]

how do you provide healthcare for the millions of workers that don't pay taxes ? if you can't produce an income tax return than you do not deserve free heralthcare. if you are disabled there should be a provision for that. i did'nt go to college and run up debt to stand in line for healthcare because our borders are compromised.

neither do i want to hear politicians speak on issuses that do not affect their wallet or their own priveleged healthcare. the clintons are a very wealthy family - of course they think everyone deserves healthcare because providing this does not fall into their fiscal lap.

let the do gooders start adopting others and provide for them.

having said all that, maybe we could bomb iraq completely for a billion and devote the other 99bill, wasted in the desert, to our domestic issues. ie. poverty,healthcare, illegal immigrants,borders, crime,etc.

to draw a comparison to france is ridiculous, they don't have the immagration problem that we do, nor does canada.

 

[THE KOD]

to draw a comparison to france is ridiculous, they don't have the immagration problem that we do, nor does canada.

Controversial French immigration bill heads to parliament
Last Updated: Tuesday, September 18, 2007 | 3:12 PM ET
CBC News

France introduced a toughened immigration bill on Tuesday that calls for voluntary DNA testing as well as proof that would-be immigrants can speak French ? controversial measures that have outraged human rights groups and even drawn the ire of members of President Nicolas Sarkozy's own party.


French President Nicolas Sarkozy, speaking today in Paris, is moving ahead on election promises of tougher immigration policies.
(Benoit Tessier/Associated Press)
The new bill follows through on Sarkozy's election pledge to crack down on illegal immigration and to reinvigorate the economy.

The leftist opposition, as well as some civil liberties groups, planned to oppose the legislation, arguing that it's racist.

Sarkozy, who was elected in May, also faced opposition from members of his new government.

Continue Article

Urban Affairs Minister Fadela Amara said that "as the daughter of immigrants," she was hurt by the proposals to have immigrant candidates submit to language testing and DNA samples to prove family relations between immigrants and relatives they want to bring into the country.

"What bothers me is that this heaps shame on foreigners who want to come to us. That shocks me," Amara said.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner also added his voice to the chorus of condemnation.

For his part, Sarkozy has contended the measures will help increase the proportion of skilled immigrants who come to France strictly to seek work to 50 per cent.

Immigration Minister Brice Hortefeux defended the bill, but he has been careful to clarify that the last-minute DNA amendment was not his work. Rather, it was proposed by another lawmaker in Sarkozy's party, Thierry Mariani.

Hortefeux has been the target of heavy criticism for promising to expel 25,000 illegal immigrants by the end of the year.

He insisted the DNA tests would be strictly voluntary, but they would be at the expense of the applicant.

The government contends that nearly a dozen other European countries already use DNA testing to ferret out fraud.

The immigration bill is widely expected to clear the lower house in a vote later in the week, and the upper house of parliament will debate the bill next month.

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France - Either submit to DNA testing voluntairily and be able to speak French or your out .

:142smilie :142smilie

Why the fawk dont we do that.

We could expunge about 2 million of them

 

[ELVIS]

new information to understand. i still don't think that their small country compares to ours in healthcare respects, but i cannot disagree with your info, nor do i disagree with the following :

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France - Either submit to DNA testing voluntairily and be able to speak French or your out .



Why the fawk dont we do that.

We could expunge about 2 million of them

 

[bryanz]

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2007/06/pdf/immigrant_health_report.pdf

 

[bryanz]

http://www.americanprogressaction.org/aboutus