http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060502/ap_on_he_me/sick_america



http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/health/3834801.html



The study in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association forgets
to note that our system allows us to have these very profitable Health
Insurance Companies that control our Congress, and a polluting industry that
neither pays for clean up or the deaths it causes, or allows our Congress to
worry about such things. Going single payer National Health would mean
almost no job losses as almost all the current workers in the Health Ins
companies would be hired to do "administrative work only" as is already done
in the US in Health in the Medicare (Part B) and Medicaid programs - but the
CEO's and senior staff would lose those jobs and their huge salaries, so I
suspect they - and the GOP Congress they have purchased - will not go this
route anytime soon.





Study Shows Americans Sicker Than English





CHICAGO - Middle-aged, white Americans are much sicker than their
counterparts in England, startling new research shows, despite U.S. health
care spending per person that's more than double what England spends.



A higher rate of Americans tested positive for diabetes and heart disease
than the English. Americans also self-reported more diabetes, heart attacks,
strokes, lung disease and cancer.



The gap between the countries holds true for educated and uneducated, rich
and poor.



"At every point in the social hierarchy there is more illness in the United
States than in England and the differences are really dramatic," said study
co-author Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at University College London
in England.<snip>

====================================================

http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-44717



The National Health Service (NHS) provides comprehensive health care
throughout the United Kingdom. The NHS provides medical care through a
tripartite structure of primary care, hospitals, and community health care.
The main element in primary care is the system of general practitioners
(family doctors), who provide preventive and curative care and who refer
patients to hospital and specialist services. All consultations with a
general practitioner under the NHS are free.



The other major types of primary medical care are dentistry and
pharmaceutical and opthalmic services. These are the only services of the
NHS for which charges are levied, though persons under age 16, past
retirement, or with low incomes are usually exempt. Everyone else must pay
charges that are below the full cost of the services involved.



Under the Department of Health in England are four regional health directors
who oversee area health authorities, whose major responsibility is to run
the hospital service. (Overseeing the health authorities in Scotland, Wales,
and Northern Ireland is the responsibility of their respective parliament or
assembly.) Hospitals absorb more than two-thirds of the NHS budget. All
hospital treatment under the NHS is free, including consultations with
doctors, nursing, drugs, and intensive care, whatever the type of medical
problem and however long the hospital stay. Hospital doctors are paid a
salary rather than a fee for service but can combine salaried work for the
NHS with a private practice.



The Community Health Service has three functions: to provide preventive
health services; to act as a liaison with local government, especially over
matters of public health; and to cooperate with local government personal
social service departments to enable health and personal care to be handled
together whenever possible.



_____

From: andylang@yahoogroups.com [mailto:andylang@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf
Of Janet Krueger
Sent: Tuesday, May 02, 2006 8:50 PM
To: andylang@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [AndyLang] Re: Chirolas -- any comments?



JAMA: National Healthcare is the way to go

Just in case anyone is still dragging their feet on getting single-payer
healthcare in America, from Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly:

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2006_05/008727.php
YES, NATIONAL HEALTHCARE REALLY IS THE WAY TO GO....Advocates of universal
healthcare frequently claim that European-style national healthcare systems,
aside from being fairer, are just more efficient than ours. They provide
decent healthcare at a lower cost than the jumbled, pseudo-free market
system we have in the United States.

But is it true? Do even relatively mediocre, underfunded national healthcare
systems like the one in Britain perform as well as American healthcare? A
new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association
reaches a pretty unambiguous conclusion.

The researchers studied health outcomes in both countries and controlled for
age by comparing only people aged 55-64. They controlled for race by
studying only non-Hispanic whites. They controlled for obesity. They
controlled for income. They controlled for education. They controlled for
everything they could think of. Here's what they found:

"At every point in the social hierarchy there is more illness in the United
States than in England and the differences are really dramatic," said study
co-author Dr. Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at University College London
in England.

....The upper crust in both countries was healthier than middle-class and
low-income people in the same country. But richer Americans' health status
resembled the health of the low-income British.

The researchers are careful to say that their study doesn't prove that
Britain's healthcare system is better than America's -- something that would
be nearly impossible to demonstrate conclusively with a study like this in
any case. But that's not the point. The point is that it's obviously not
worse even though the British spend about half as much as we do per capita.

So here's the deal: under the British system, you don't have to worry about
which doctors your HMO allows you to see. You don't have to worry about
losing coverage if you get laid off. You don't have to worry about being
unable to get a new job because you have a pre-existing condition. You don't
have to worry about being bankrupted if you contract a serious chronic
illness. And large corporations don't have to worry about going out of
business because of spiraling healthcare obligations.

And the result of all this? Healthcare that's as good as ours and delivered
for about half the cost. Under a national healthcare system, when you get
sick, all you have to worry about is getting well. Explain to me again why
we're afraid of this?





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