tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697603232354740832.post9167596151572700928..comments2023-08-16T06:30:12.495-07:00Comments on HealthMatters: The Big FourUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697603232354740832.post-20487380065077316522010-12-21T07:19:22.555-08:002010-12-21T07:19:22.555-08:00Right. The insurance-based models in other countri...Right. The insurance-based models in other countries work as well as they do because<br /><br />1. Health care access is unified under a single model instead of fragmented.<br />2. Insurance regulation is centralized instead of dispersed to 50 different places.<br />3. Insurance companies are answerable to a single body instead of unlinked entities (state insurance commissions, businesses large and small, and hospital systems).<br /><br />In addition to the problems created by our approach to insurance, we suffer from the absence of a national health policy. This constrains efforts to deal with chronic disease (75% of health care costs center on five conditions), contain the obesity epidemic, develop coordinated public health measures, emphasize preventive health care, and educate the public on the necessity of population health. <br /><br />Right now, we spend between 15-18% of our GDP on health care. Some argue that that number would drop like a stone if a third of it were redirected to public health. On the other hand, I've heard one public health expert say that while that is theoretically correct, the American public health infrastructure is so anemic that it couldn't effectively absorb that kind of money, at least right away.K.https://www.blogger.com/profile/10222703055177237209noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3697603232354740832.post-58575191870188764922010-12-20T06:16:38.774-08:002010-12-20T06:16:38.774-08:00What the U.S. nor so-called Obama-care does not ha...What the U.S. nor so-called Obama-care does not have, are any of the parts that make each of these other models work as far as they do work.<br /><br />It does not does not include tight regulation and / or oversight. It lacks non-profit and government competitive plans.<br /><br />What it has that none of the others do is mandatory payment to the insurance corporations that broke our health system in the first place without any guarantee that they must deliver care and / or payment.Foxessahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06754083123669916994noreply@blogger.com