U. S. health care system very ill

Another report confirming something that those of us who have worked in hospitals and clinics knew already, alas. The U.S. health care system is very ill.

"According to the report, total U.S. health care spending by government, employers, insurance and individuals averaged $6,102 per person in 2004 -- more than the average spent on individuals in every other country after adjusting for the local cost of living. The report's authors said that U.S. residents with below-average incomes were more likely than their counterparts in other countries to not have received needed care because of cost. In addition, the report found that Britain had the best system in "quality care, access, efficiency, equity and healthy lives" and that it spends less per person than the U.S. or Canada."

Perhaps it is time for us to realize what every other advanced industrial country in the world has figured out -- health care is not a consumer good, or a luxury -- it is instead a social resource. My health care can be the best and most expensive in the world, but if I walk down the street and encounter a person with TB, my health care will have to absorb that 'cost'. Thus my health is related to yours, and vice versa. It benefits my health for those in my community to also be healthy. How many social ills are generated by this foolish mentality that health care should be considered a consumer good?