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Dysfunctional US Healthcare

Written by Subject: Healthcare

Dysfunctional US Healthcare

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

Healthcare is a fundamental human right.

Yet it's increasingly unaffordable for millions of Americans.

It's a rationing system based on the ability to pay.

Insurers, Pharma and large hospital chains benefit hugely.

Despite high-minded claims divorced from reality, millions of Americans are uninsured because of what they can't afford.

Most others are underinsured for the same reason.

Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP) advocates for publicly-funded comprehensive universal coverage for all Americans — Medicare for all, everyone in, no one left out.

It stressed that the US "fractured and inefficient collection of private and public health programs leaves millions of Americans out in the cold."

Once affordable in the US, that's no longer the case.

In 1960, healthcare as a percent of GDP was 5.1%. In 2002, it was 15%. In 2011, 17.9%.

In 2020, it was 18%. Before the decade's end, it's expected to be 20% or higher.

In 1980, the average cost of a US hospital room was about $127.

According to debt.org, US hospitalization costs $2,607 on average.

In California, it's $3,726.

If stay overnight — based on type of insurance coverage — costs run from $11,700 to $13,600.

An average emergency room visit costs $2,200.

Simple procedures cost $1,500 or more.

At a time when most working Americans earn poverty wages with few or no benefits, nearly two-thirds of household bankruptcies are because of unaffordable medical expenses.

The US is the world's only developed country without some form of universal healthcare.

Based on how calculated pre-1990, it's at a time of around 25% unemployment, institutionalized inequity and injustice, military Keynesianism, money-printing madness for investors, social injustice, and made-in-the-USA flu/covid transformation of the nation to tyrannical rule by health-destroying  diktats.

In January 2020, a Commonwealth Club report on the state of US healthcare explained that America's commodified system cost double what households pay in other developed countries, adding:

"The US spends more on health care than any other high-income country but has the lowest life expectancy."

It "has the highest suicide rate among wealthy nations."

It "has the highest chronic disease burden and an obesity rate that is two times higher than the OECD average."

It has the highest number of hospitalizations from "preventable causes" and highest rate of "avoidable deaths."

"Americans had fewer physician visits than peers in most countries," cost a major factor.

Since seasonal flu was renamed covid with diabolical aims in mind, the above health indicators and others worsened — because of draconian health-destroying policies, notably mass-jabbing with toxins crucial to shun.

If the present trend continues unchallenged, the dysfunctional state of healthcare for most Americans could implode altogether.

The Commonwealth Club study stressed that while the US spends double per capita compared to other developed countries, "comparable performance" falls woefully short.

Americans "live relatively unhealthier and shorter lives than peers in other high-income countries."

Instead of addressing a system badly in need of fixing, things more greatly deteriorated because of all things flu/covid war on public health with depopulation and social control tyranny in mind.

VISIT MY WEBSITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My two Wall Street books are timely reading:

"How Wall Street Fleeces America: Privatized Banking, Government Collusion, and Class War"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/how-wall-street-fleeces-america/

"Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity"

https://www.claritypress.com/product/banker-occupation-waging-financial-war-on-humanity/

streamingclarity.global 

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