The Worst Healthcare System in the Developed World: Ours

“Two-thirds of Americans are putting off medical care they need because of the cost

and half are already struggling to pay off debts…” 

Kaiser Health News (6/22)

We know that the United States is the only developed country on earth without universal healthcare. We also know that we have the highest per capita medical costs, the most expensive average prescription costs and even those who have health insurance are often slammed with co-pays and deductibles. And there are lots of developing nations with healthcare coverage for all as well (e.g., Costa Rica). Medical bankruptcies are exceptionally rare in the rest of the world… but not here.

With the pandemic official over, millions of Americans who were covered by some form of extended Medicaid or at least for inoculations and test kits are being dumped without healthcare coverage. Red state conservatives, conflating social programs as “creeping socialism,” were at the starting gate to cut back Medicaid and other healthcare programs the instant the pandemic provisions of federal services lapsed. Our system remains so flawed, well beyond the decimation of government healthcare for the poorest in the land. Even those with insurance coverage are being pushed into severe debt beyond the cost of the premiums themselves. Co-pays, exclusion, caps and deductibles are breaking the backs of so many working Americans. Medical bankruptcies in the United States are hardly a rarity.

Writing for the July 16th Los Angeles Times, journalist Noam Levey, having surveyed those with insurance who have received unaffordable invoices for medical care, tells us: “The experience offered a stark lesson, he said: ‘Don’t trust the system.’…

“Reporting on medical debt over the past two years, I’ve spent hundreds of hours on the telephone, in the living rooms and at the kitchen tables of patients [who have received surprised bills for healthcare costs excluded from their coverage]. They are among the 100 million people in America who have been driven into debt by medical and dental bills… Many of my conversations with patients have revealed a deep and disturbing disillusionment with our healthcare system… Medical providers ignore this at their peril — and at a high risk to Americans’ health.

“Doctors and hospitals have long held an exalted position in American life, retaining public confidence even as the public has steadily lost trust in other institutions such as government, law enforcement and the media… Growing up, I shared this faith. My father was a physician who never hesitated to get up in the middle of the night and drive to the hospital to operate on a sick child in his care. But as a journalist covering healthcare the past 15 years, I have seen American patients’ faith shaken.

“They’re tired of shocking medical bills they didn’t expect and can’t afford. And they’re disgusted by the collection notices, the threatening phone calls and appointments they can’t get because they owe money.

“Many Americans say they simply no longer trust their medical providers. This is borne out by polling conducted by KFF [Kaiser Family Foundation] as part of an investigation of medical debt. Just 15% of people with healthcare debt said they have a lot of trust that providers have patients’ best interests in mind. That’s about half the rate as among people without such debt…. And as the political turmoil of recent years shows, public anger and disillusionment can produce unpredictable, even dangerous results.”

Even Medicare patients are still struggling with the cost of prescription drugs, and even though prospective changes will moderate some of these concerns, the lack of real coverage for dental, hearing and vision issues is a serious problem. Seniors are skipping life-saving prescriptions or cutting their pills in half to extend their usage.

The only solution – universal healthcare – is mislabeled “creeping socialism” by the GOP as it proposes cuts to Social Security and Medicare but is willing to incur massive deficits to keep taxes for the rich low. To call Germany or Switzerland “socialist” because they have exceptionally effective universal healthcare seems almost laughable. It’s hard to believe that countries that manufacture some of the most complex machines, are home to major banks and private equity funds, create and manufacture some of the most effective medications and exceptional consumer goods targeting well-heeled buyers – from Rolex watches to Porches and BMWs – are bastions of socialism is indeed ludicrous. That every other developed nation on earth – all of which have universal healthcare – is “socialist” is equally absurd.

As this nation has elevated plutocracy as its own reward, fashioning laws that have allowed one percent of our population to own half of all of American wealth, and as one of our two main political parties advocates autocracy as the new American form of leadership, we just might watch as well slip-slide down the economic and global influence ladder, allowing China to achieve their wildest dream of global domination with our leadership clearing a path for that rising possibility.

I’m Peter Dekom, and even for those who believe in “America First,” they actually might try embracing policies that indeed put American citizens first… or at least equal to the rest of the developed world.