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Doctors, nurses, and hospitals are killing people. It’s not intentional murder. But, dead is dead when you’re the victim of their medical “mistakes.” This goes on year after year. How many? The Institute of Medicine estimates that the number of dead people is as many as 98,000. This is just from “mistakes.” If you killed someone due to a driving “mistake,” you’d expect to do jail time. Is this level of misfeasance something new? Something just learned? No, this awful rate of death has been known even before the Institute of Medicine published its famous report in 1999. Did you ever hear of state or federal commission being established to investigate why so many Americans are being killed? Maybe this death rate is related to the quality of medicine in the U.S. Try this one. In 2000, the World Health Organization found the United States ranked 37th in the world in its health care, just ahead of Cuba and Slovenia. In 2006, the U.S. was spending 16% of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product on healthcare. That’s more than any other country spends. That’s like spending $50,000 for a car and driving home a beater. And the costs have been continuing to rise . . . big-time. How did our can-do country get itself into such a dead-end trap? Finally, those awful numbers about the cost of health care don’t even include the Americans who do NOT get health care. The accepted statistic is that 27,000 Americans have to die each year because they do not have health insurance. And, they just can’t afford basic care from their own financial resources. End of story. What more would you need to know to get “mad as hell?” The Congress could face the problems and create the solutions. In health care, any state legislature has the authority to face the problems and create the solutions. But, they seem to always find an excuse to look the other way. You can let them know your position. The financing scheme for universal healthcare is almost another topic. But, if that is of interest, here’s one way to do it:Universal Health Insurance.
Click here to contact your representatives in Washington, D.C.: – Byron
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Tags: Health Insurance, Institute of Medicine, World Health Organization
You are preaching to the choir. I have been of the belief for several years that the health care system in the US is the worst in the industrialized world. We pay more and get less; however, that doesn’t explain why our doctors and nurses kill patients.
The reason for medical mistakes can’t be attributed to the higher cost of medical care. It is because our medical professionals are not as well educated than those in other countries even though many of them attend the same medical schools.
The explanation for that is that our elementary and high school systems do a lousy job of preparing young people for advanced education. While our medical schools are considered to be the finest in the world, our students are among the worst. The high achievers at most universities in the US are foreign students.
After graduation, other countries get the practitioners who were medical school A students, and we get the average and below average ones.
Medicine has been dumbed down as we have shifted away from a manufacturing economy to a service one. We’ve quit making Packards and Hudsons and now offer the “medical services delivery system” in its place. The “practice” of medicine is an art not a science so grading quality has never caught up. Ratings (such as they are) are published by the same folks that brought us Fitch; Moody’s and S&P. It’s an unholy relationship that’s fast becoming as questionable as the “Wall Street Bonus.”
A sort of good old boy network gone mad – no accountability – just look at the reams of paperwork absolving everyone and everything related to the “delivery of care”. My advice: Take a Red Cross course; best of luck!
Remember the last time you sat in the doctor’s office? Were there on the wall the diplomas or certificates posted nearby that stated the qualifications of this man? Do you often wonder if he did this in record time or perhaps maybe there were courses that he had to take over twice maybe three times before he received the grade to continue to the next required course? The one course that come to mind for me is the art of washing your hands after going to the bathroom. Most of us are taught this at an early age. As you know though after getting out into the working world those people that you work with don’t always perform this task. Doctors would not be any different on this matter. The medical giant has gotten so that no matter what the procedure, you have signed papers that prevent you from giving any blame to the physician or institution whatsoever. The Red Cross idea in turn is an excellent one!