Twenty percent of children don’t get immunized.
Nuts.
This is a signature to mark our era; a report to the future that we are confused about how to be together.
Our failure to deliver hope and health to children is astounding.
The Chicago Tribune examines the 2008 candidates more thoroughly than other sources, though probably also panders to party machinery. A recent report on Hillary Clinton’s revival of new policies for our nation’s health tells that she has already introduced legislation to expand health care coverage to all children.
Like too many sectors of today’s America, there is a tremendous supply of money that fails to reach the street.
Costs are out of control: premiums have almost doubled since 2000; the nation spends 16 percent of its gross domestic product on health care; 30 percent of the cost increase is related to the doubling of obesity among adults during the last two decades; and the nation’s administrative costs are the highest in the world.
Clinton stumped, “If we spend so much, why does the World Health Organization rank the United States 31st in life expectancy and 40th in child mortality, worse than Cuba and Croatia?”
The insurance industry used major media to mock Hillary Clinton fifteen years ago, making her healthcare efforts seem complex and unworkable, and as the article states, “a laughingstock in some quarters”. Who’s laughing? Mothers and fathers and families at risk for tuberculosis, whooping cough, mumps?
As president, Clinton said, she would focus on prevention, keeping people well rather than treating them later when they are sick and the cost of treatment is more expensive.
“Under my reforms, all Americans will have access to comprehensive preventive care, which will save money in the long run.” She would require all insurers who participate.
“The whole point of insurance, lest we forget, is to spread risk across a group of enrollees,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons that the administrative costs of Medicare are so much lower—because they are actually insuring everyone.”
The Tribune signs off by saying, “Political candidates often cite ‘eliminating waste’ as a way to produce a windfall, but it is unclear how much money could actually be saved.”
I’ll end this post saying it’s not about saving money, it’s about where money goes. It’s time for us to control our cash by demanding service for spending. It’s time for the ship of state to sink a few yachts.