The U.S. Health Care Front Line: Politics, Reform, and "Sicko"

The following story from the BBC depicts the dire straits of Health Care delivery throughout the United States. Florida has the potential opportunity to lead the charge for proper development and implementation of Health Care reform measures that will benefit all Patients. I pledge to do my part to make certain that our State and Nation provide top-quality, affordable, and accessible Health Care in a timely and effective manner.

Sincerely,

Dr. Marion D. Thorpe, Jr.


U.S. mulls over Health Care Reform

By Justin Webb BBC News, Houston Last Updated: Friday, 25 May 2007, 10:31 GMT 11:31 UK

Devante Johnson died of cancer

"If a politician declares that the United States has the best health care system in the world today, he or she looks clueless rather than patriotic or authoritative."

So says Dr Ezekiel Emanuel, an ethicist at the US National Institutes of Health.

The US health system is in a state of crisis and serious politicians, including several presidential candidates, say the time has come to reform it along the lines of the European or Canadian model.

There is an advertisement running in the US that asks people to put pressure on the politicians to arrange health insurance coverage for every child.

To the rest of us living in the wealthy West it seems mighty odd to put it mildly that such an advertisement would be necessary, that the idea of "getting every child covered" could be remotely controversial.

Fewer safety nets

But the US healthcare system is unique. The US spends hugely more per person than any other advanced nation - but also has fewer safety nets for those on low incomes.

That does not mean that children here have no health care; a child or, for that matter, an adult who is ill and goes to hospital must be treated - stabilised is the word they use - before money is discussed.

But money will then be discussed and without any money treatment can be poor.

I visited the Scott family in Texas. Texas has the worst insurance record of any state, with about a quarter of the population without cover.

Tamika and her two young sons Derek and Demarcus live on the outer suburbs of Houston - a land of multi-lane highways and tatty shopping malls, a place where ends do not always meet.

This is a home that pays its bills - just.

No cover

Above the fireplace there is a picture of a 14-year-old boy - a third brother who is not here. Devante was his name.

Two months ago Devante Johnson died of kidney cancer. His mum had been diligent in getting him care and dealing with the mountain of paperwork involved in paying the bills or getting someone to pay them - insurers, the state, charities.

But a bureaucratic error last year led to the money running out for four months - so a 14-year-old cancer patient had no coverage, no treatment, expect experimental drugs provided for free.

He lost weight and was in added pain his mother says.

Eventually the coverage and the treatment were restarted, but Devante died.

His mother says he would still be alive if she had had the money to pay.

No welfare state

Ana Malinow is a paediatrician at a Texas public hospital and campaigns for this system to change.

Texans are good people she says, they are not cruel and they do not expect children to suffer for lack of cash.

They are just ignorant about the system and ignorant about potential solutions.

It is interesting that even left-wing Americans generally reject the knee-jerk European view of their nation and its affairs: that it is brutal and unforgiving and that this approach is part of "the American way".

There are unquestionably some Europeans who will regard the move towards fairer health care in the US as a sign that America is coming to its senses and might be "more European" in the future - that its love affair with the free market is waning.

As a columnist in the Guardian newspaper put it recently, "is it possible that the era of neo-liberal certainty is waning?"

The answer, in American healthcare, is perhaps.

But in a manner that does not turn the US into a welfare state.

Jonathan Rauch is an academic at the Brookings Institution, a centre-left think tank.

Film attacks system

He says the US system is a bureaucratic mess, but the aims of US doctors and the US public are, he claims, not dissimilar to those of European doctors and publics: that healthcare should be available at high quality to the largest number of people.

Michael Moore is having his say at the moment with his latest film "Sicko" in which he attacks the US system and praises Cuba.

The danger is that Americans see the film and convince themselves that this is just one more over-stated case.

In particular they will wonder whether alternative systems - Cuba and the UK - are really as wonderful as Moore suggests.

But it would be a pity if the debate became mired in a fight over Michael Moore's film-making techniques.

The need for reform is real and Tamika Scott does not need to go to the cinema to learn how unfair the current setup is.

In a world centre of cancer care - Houston - no money could be found for four months last year to treat her son. That is sick.