Check out my discussion above with Ali Velshi on how to fix U.S. health care. This Sunday at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT I'll explore this question on a GPS Special: Global Lessons – The GPS Road Map for Saving Heath Care. This is the the first in a series of four GPS “Global Lessons” specials. The special will run again Saturday, March 24th, at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.
The health care special will take you around the world to show you how other nations manage their health care. We'll learn lessons from Britain, Switzerland and Taiwan. I'll show you just how expensive U.S. health care can be – for comparatively low-quality returns. And finally, I'll share my own thoughts on what we need to do to fix our system. Be sure to tune in. You can also join a live discussion on twitter during the special using the hashtag #SavingHealthCare.
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America is overworked and we forgot how to rest. Rest is no longer in American societies DNA.
If every American will take responsability for their health by giving up junk food.
Living a clean life with clean water, clean food like whole food and keep their body moving.
Our health care would be much healthier. Most all health challanges can be fix with good nutrition.
The media should talk more about being in charge of our health and making better choices in our eating habits.
I agree.
people don't even know what the healthcare rfoerm bill is; nobody has bothered to read itwe dont have national healthcare like canada, we have something elsebut i agree with some ppl before me Fox News uses communism to scare people
The single payer system has proven time and time again it gives the best results. There is no way you can make medicine into a capitalistic system (the reason why the U.S. system is so broken). The U.S. system should not be made into the exact same "single payer system" as every other country but the foundation of the reworked system should have a "single payer foundation." Then the rest can be privatized or reworked to suit the country's needs.
Healthcare and education are the absolute minimum rights any citizen of a civilized nation should enjoy. Education is paid for through some form of a tax and it does not matter whether its local, state or federal tax. People with no kids pay the education tax so that other kids get to go to school, why not healthcare.
The problem with the US healthcare system is not that the politicians don't know what the solution is ( they know exactly how to do it, and there are many lessons from other civilized nations they can learn from), the problem squarely lies in the desire to appease healthcare providers and insurers who would see their earnings drop in a universal system. But they are taking the irresponsible view of "its ok to let people who don't have insurance get ill and die, just ask the new Presidential candidates on the right". The cost of healthcare will drop substantially if the average citizen can be provided with preventative healthcare, not reactive healthcare after they get very sick. A for profit insurance model will never support such an approach, because the benefits of such approach will take 5 -10 years to become evident, the insurance companies will not ask their shareholder to wait that long.
In a nutshell, the US is the only country in the G7 that does not provide basic healthcare to everyone of each citizens.. Shame on them.
You bet and you are right. Single payer is effective, and the only foundation to build off of. None of the controller-cats are ready to let go of that grip around the necks of everyone's illness until every drop of blood is squeezed out. It is like oil... there will be no alternative energy until there is no alternative and every drop of oil has been capitalized. So the health care crisis is like all the other crises we have right now.. it is grabbing for dollars and ignoring the future. If you want to turn it into the "Big Three," lets add in Citizen's United. Now we have the complete picture of why our economy is all cracked and run by corrupted inertia. These three areas of greed are too big to fail. This is all about a moral crisis. About loss of personal dignity. About honor and hard work. All the things that we used to believe our country was about. Reminds of the story about the Cowboy who was pulled into the future by the love of young cowboy believer. The old cowboy finally tells the little believer that he really couldn't stay in this world of the future, because he couldn't live in a world where the good guy and the bad guy are the same guy. We need to make a choice. How are you going to live? What are your choices going to be. Laughing at the good and worshiping the evil. Winking at the corrupt. Smiling at unfairness... or standing for something with honor. Live your life with honor, share fairness, cultivate goodness.. it is not a joke. If you think it is, look around you.. its no joke. And if you think twice that it is all right.. why are you reading this?
Why is the Affordable Health Care Act not affordable?
It hasn't been fully implemented yet and the insurance companies are charging more for as long as they can. This August, most companies will be reimbursing their customers. They will be required to keep their administrative costs at 15-20% and if they don't, they will have to send all of us checks.
Farid is right. I have lived in California for 33 years, paid taxes, and have had insurances for some of that time. Three years ago got laid off, lost my insurance, and 6 months later had a heart failure. In the end I did get care from hospital and from government even without insurance, simply put "the system" does have heart, but I carry a shame for having used the system, even thought I had already paid ample amount to "the system." In short, I should not feel shame for facing a medical condition that was beyond my control. A universal health care system is necessary as is DMV and IRS. It is too important and too complicated to leave the health care for the market to manage.
Fareed is a big government apologist. The solution is not a greater government involvement in health care. It is the separation of health care and employment. Most Americans get their health insurance from their employers, which means health insurance is not being purchased by consumers, but by third parties. The result is that (1)health insurance consumers don't shop around and force insurance companies to provide better service and operate more efficiently and (2) losing your job means losing your health insurance (see comment above).
What we have now is not a free market system, as Fareed would claim. Most people get their health insurance from their employers because non-cash benefits like health insurance are not considered taxable income. Wages are taxed, health insurance provided directly by an employer is not. So the health insurance system we have today, like a lot of problems we have in the US, comes from an asinine tax code, not a lack of government.
Get off the government bandwagon, Fareed.
Mike,
If you don't think that employers and their employees, working togoether, do not shop around for the best prices in the private insurance market, you are sorely mistaken. Employees are now working with their bosses to get the best coverage possible since they are almost all asked to pay an increasing amount of the policy premium. No offense, but you are just mistaken in your thinking on this point.
Our current system keeps us an indentured labor force, working to have health care and foregoing REAL wages,. In essence we are subsidizing the Insurance industry with our lost income.
Mr Zakaria, You have absolutely made my day. You are one of the smartest people on Television and I wish all my Republican (wealthy) friends would listen to you. Who Have we become as a people? Have we become so short sided that we can not see the forest for the trees? All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you. Please continue to inform as well as you do and maybe , just maybe, our citizens will begin to see the light.
the afgani investigation and the international lab proved now that 15 usa soldiers was involved of killing more than 16 children and women, and that 15 soldiers ra pe 2 afgani ladies young ladies ra pe them repeatdley and then shot them dead and burned there bodies , exactley as it happened in iraq when usa soldiers ra ped 14 years old girl then shot her and shot her parents and brothers and burned there bodies ...usa did that in vitnam ,korea and many other places they are murderous thugs ra piest killers and OBAMA say soyy all the time!!?/while leaving evil iranians and evil syrian bashar al asad killing more civilians obama is a cowered president if obama want to fix this problem he must attack syria now and remove bashar al asad to show to the muslim world that he mean it, remove the evil in syria now and prove your point OBAMA.......why you are silent...SILENCE IS A CRIME.
And this has something to do with healthcare, how? Also, learn English and learn how to spell.
I agree that decoupling health insurance from employment is needed. That way people won't lose their health insurance when they lose their jobs or when they get too ill to work, which would be when they need it the most. It would also free people up to change jobs or start businesses if they don't have to worry about losing their health care when they leave their employer.
The problem with just using a free market approach to health insurance is the idea that people can shop around thus force insurance companies to provide better service. The reason is that the insurance companies don't want to insure people who are very ill because they cost too much, Also people who are very ill often don't have the resources to pay the higher premiums, even if they found a policy, and they often would not have the energy to go looking around for one. How difficult is it for the average person to navigate the health insurance market. Now imagine some elderly or very ill person trying to do it.
We need to step away from ideology, look at the problem, get the facts and not the spin, and see what has been tried and what works. I applaud Fareed for his pragmatic approach.
One reason health insurance costs so much is that the typical policy covers routine care that the insured is almost certain to have. It's equivalent to having oil changes included in your car insurance. If we buy insurance coverage for catastrophic events and shop for routine care, the prices of both the insurance and the routine care can be reduced.
http://www.hoover.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/7298
I read your article and my question is what do we do for the poorest people who can't afford the doctor's visits or medication?
While it is important to study ways in which to better insure more people and improve the access to health care, we need to expand our study to how health care is delivered. Otherwise costs will continue to rise. Part of an improvement in health care delivery involves moving away from fee-for-service which just incentivizes more care and thus more cost.
What we really need is to make fundamental changes in how medicine is practiced. By this I mean, we need to (re)-educate people in how to be healthy and how to get healthy. Many people equate more health care with better health when this is not the case. In most cases it is the opposite...more care engenders worse health, Our medical system is based on diagnosing a problem, running many expensive tests, prescribing meds with many side effects (which may or may not help temporarily) and/or performing procedures or surgery. The result is the currrent health of our nation: the rising chronic illnesses, the debillitation, lost productivity and decreased quality of life, and skyrocketing health care costs.
What it seems we actually need to do to promote health is to do LESS, not more, We need to SUBTRACT and not add. In subtracting, not only can we improve health but cut costs dramatically. This concept is almost foreign in our approach to health, We are constantly looking for the dr, med, procedure, etc that will help us, cure us. We are constantly taking things (meds, tests, etc) to "prevent" illness. What if we don't need to do all this. What if we can reverse illness without treatment! Is this possible? How? We already know how. Our body heals itself. It knows how to heal a broken leg, etc. It knows what to do. If our body knows how to heal itself, what can it heal? Perhaps anything? If it knows how to heal anything why doesn't it? If a plant knows how to make a flower, why doesn't it? Because it doesn't have what it wants, enough water or sun or the right temp. Our body doesn't heal because it is not getting what it wants, or is getting what it doesn't want, which prevents it from healing. Our body needs very little to heal: the amount of rest, movement, sleep, water and the type of food it wants. It is very simple and basic. Each person's body is in a different state, so each person's body wants specifically what it wants. Therefore we are all responsible for our own healing, giving our body what it wants to heal.
Related to our body's knowledge about how to heal is our body's drive to heal. It moves toward survival, better functioning and homeostasis, automatically making changes that would promote health, We just need to give our body those few basic things to support it and mostly stop doing what we do that gets in the way.
Another key aspect is based in physics. The body is a system and we need to think of it in those terms, rather than just as specific parts and individual chemicals. What happens in one area of the body affects other areas. That is why there are "side" effects. Physics tells us that for every action there is a reaction. Our bodies react to what they are exposed to whether it is physical (food), mental (thoughts and emotions) or whatever. Our symptoms, our illnesses are our bodies' reactions to what it is/has been exposed to. Therefore if we keep doing the action, we keep getting the reaction (symptoms) that we are getting, Thus we have chronic and progressive illness.We need to subtract the actions, not add more actions (treatments) which will result in more reactions, Then our bodies can heal as they both know how to do and have a drive to do. This is where the (re)-education comes in: we need more health education and less health care.
As you may have guessed, this is somewhat of a rant for me. It is not just an opinion I hold, it has been a working theory for me. I have used this approach in addressing my own health, which includes a debilitating illness for which there is no known cause or treatment. And what I have experienced has astounded me. I have had numerous symptoms reverse and even disappear, symptoms which have worsened for decades and which I have had since I was a child, symptoms which there is no treatment for. Even symptoms associated with aging have diminished. It has cost me nothing but time and attention. I have done it myself and without treatment, meds, supplements, or OTC products. It is beyond what I thought would be possible. It has been both a grand experiment and a magic carpet ride. I am in the process of writing a book about my experiences and hope to let people know of this perspective and its ability to restore both our personal health and our economic health. I was heartened to see David Agus, MD's recent book "The End of Illness" mention a few of these concepts. Even though his prescription mostly involved more tests and medications, it was nice to see that people, especially those in the medical profession, were moving in what I would call, the right direction. I share this ideas and thoughts with you in hopes it may provide some benefit.
While I agree with some of what you are saying, it can't work for everything. For instance, I have a rare disease that requires me to take a replacement hormone. If I don't take that hormone, I will die. Many people have type I diabetes, where they will die without the insulin that their body doesn't make. There is nothing lifestyle wise that will fix diseases like this.
I can't go into detail in this forum due to space and the topic, but what I am referring to goes beyond what is usually considered when one thinks of "lifestyle" changes. Many conditions are considered not treatable in ways other than drugs or medical procedures because it is unknown by the medical profession how to treat them any other way. I had an IgE level of over 19K; the average level is less than 100. I was told there was no treatment for this other than interferon which doesn't work well and has some sizable side effects. I got my IgE down to less than 2500 so far without any treatment and at a cost of nothing, using the approach I alluded to above. If our body knows how to change a stem cell into any functioning cell in our body why wouldn't it know how to fix the funtioning of any cell? We just aren't used to thinking in this way...from a systems point of view. When we do, who knows what is possible. An example of this is exercise/movment. More and more studies are being done which show exercise benefiting all kinds of conditions. But it is not really exercise such as working out for an hour 3 tx per week; studies show it is actually frequent movement. If you move when and how your body wants to move, all kinds of things benefit. And it costs nothing.
I kissed my way up to VP at a health insurance company. Now I take over $500,000 of your health care dollars for NO VALUE ADDED to your health care. And that’s just me. Now think about how many other VPs, Directors, Managers, etc. are at my company alone. Now multiply that by thousands of others at hundreds of other health insurance companies. From 10 to 25% of your health care dollars go towards administration that adds NO VALUE to your health care. But my company’s PAC dollars will continue to fool you little people into thinking that a single payer system will be bad. Little people like you are so easy to fool. Little people also don’t realize that a single payer system is the ONLY system that would allow little people (as an entire country) to negotiate better health care prices. Little people don’t realize that the Medical Cartels already know that. And that is the reason why the Medical Cartels spend so much PAC money from the hospitals and doctors lobbying against a single payer system. Some little people say that a single payer system would cost you little people more. But if that were true, then wouldn’t the hospitals and doctors WANT that extra money? Yes they would. So why do the Medical Cartels lobby against a single payer system? It’s because the Medical Cartels know it would allow little people to negotiate better health care prices. And that’s what the Medical Cartels are afraid of. Period.
But us big wigs at insurance companies, hospitals, and pharmacy companies don’t ever need to worry about health care no matter what it costs. We get our health care paid for one way or another by you little people. And we get the little people that work at our companies to contribute to our PACs. And us big wigs say it’s to protect the little peoples’ jobs. But in reality it would be in the little peoples’ best interest to NOT contribute to the PAC. Again, little people are so easy to be fooled. I won’t ever have to worry about losing my job with so many little people being brain washed by the Medical Cartels’ PAC money. Not only that, the Medical Cartels’ PAC money is used to elect so many republicans that will never allow a single payer system. Republicans have always fought against any meaningful health care reform. But that’s what our Medical Cartels’ PACs pay them for. Politicians can be bought so easily.
Pretty soon the only people that will be able to afford health care is us big wigs. And that’s the way it should be. We don’t want you little people using up the resources when we need them. And once again, I thank you little people for capping my SS tax at the $106,800 level. Now I only pay 1.3% SS tax and you little people pay 6.2%. Also, thank you for extending my tax breaks. I’m using the extra money on my vacation houses.
Extremely rude but blatantly true. I suggest we don't get too comfortable in our positions because this labile economy is unpredictable. Take it from one who took a $30K decrease since 2008, but I'm still standing. : )
In short, it is time to drop Big Healthcare Insurance.
On March 12, 2012, Germany's healthcare system reported a financial surplus of over $5 billion dollars!
Google Lund Report. That is the only source in America of this news. For those who can read German the report is also in the Handlesblatt, Germany's equivalent to the Wall Street Journal.
We can be certain that such news will not be relayed to the American public by the American media. Anyone wonder why?
Healthcare is not subject to normal market forces! Anything that you have to buy at any random moment in order not to die is not something to which a rational supply/demand calculus can apply. Check out "Penny Health" articles on how to reduce the cost of insurance.
I am a regular watcher in Italy of GPS on sunday afternoon, and so I am most interested in seeing the "fixing US healthcare" special. Unfortunately, as in much of the CNN site and Fareed's in particular, it is far from intuitive to find in the TV schedule when this special will be broadcast in italy. As usual, all seems to point to "give us money" and you can have access - a shame! Anyway, when can I watch? Can anyone help?
Hello would you mind stating which blog plarfotm you're working with? I'm going to start my own blog in the near future but I'm having a tough time making a decision between BlogEngine/Wordpress/B2evolution and Drupal. The reason I ask is because your design seems different then most blogs and I'm looking for something unique. P.S Sorry for being off-topic but I had to ask!
I find it quite odd that the Republican base is a generally older on than the Democrats; and that even though a lot of the people who will be voting Republican will need significant healthcare in the next ten to twenty years they still don't want to switch to the single payer system. As a Canadian who was born with health challenges I can tell you that If I had lived in the United States my entire family would be bankrupt by now because of healthcare costs. Or I would not have received surgeries that dramatically improved my quality of life.
The economic issue used to be "guns or butter." Now it is "guns or healthcare." I suspect we can't afford both.
We were just discussing the military airplane and helicopter antics in our area, so, my guess, right now, is we are affording the mighty machines of war.
A recent poll taken in Florida showed overwhelming support for drug testing government employees. The argument being made by the T party Governor, is that governemt should be no different than private companies. The people who put in their votes in agreement did not think that perhaps they should support the rights of employees in private companies to not be subjected to drug tests without reason. It was the classic case where instead of fighting to support individual rights, they prefer instead to drag others down out of sheer spite.
The fact that a single payer system is the best way to ensure all citizens are covered while minimizing costs is a "no brainer". There is no mystery to this. The reason why it doesn't happen (and will never happen) is because we have significant segments of our society (such as my example of the Florida poll story) that are motivated by bigotry, ignorance and greed. These segments will never allow people who they detest to have the benefit of health care if their taxes will be used for the purpose, even though they themselves will benefit from it. Also, for it to happen, it will have to be authorized by the "government", which they have been taught hate. Hatred of government is drilled into them day in and day out by their puppet masters like Limbaugh, Beck, Hannity, et., al.
Why the Swiss? Americans know the cheese and the secret bank accounts that hide ill gotten gains.
Why not Israel's health care system? Population of Israel and Switzerland are comparable. Americans admire
Israelis and trust their judgment. Christians associate Israel with Christ. Israel has the highest ratio of physicians to population in the world. Physicians don't flee Israel. What were you thinking?
After listening to your program about US infant mortality rates, I wondered what portion of those deaths is attributed to drug use (?). Also, aren't doctor required to drug test expectant mothers? Might that be why some women don't seek medical help until they are giving birth? I do believe it is important to protect the unborn child; however, are the laws that protect an unborn infant also contributing to their death.
I'm finding convincing arguments that the modern Western Medicine Methods of birthing are actually contributing to higher infant mortality.
Our healthcare system is not 'broken' – it is just not doing what people think it is supposed to do. The easiest way to understand what is 'wrong' with our healthcare system (that is, growing costs with comparatively poor results) is to do what Albert Einstein used to call a 'thought experiment'.
For this 'thought experiment' imagine what would happen if there were a sudden, and pervasive, outbreak of 'health' in America. No more cancer, no more diabetes, no more AIDS, etc. What would happen to the US economy if suddenly the entire population was 'healthy'?
Immediately we can see that that segment of the US economy involved in health care research, health care delivery, drug development and production, and all the related industries that augment and support these activities, would suffer catastrophic losses. For example note how development of a polio vaccine put the iron lung industry pretty much out of business.
Now a sudden outbreak of 'health' is not likely, or even possible. But what this thought experiment does is to give us a different perspective on the forces arrayed against any effort to fix (change) our current healthcare system.
This perspective allows us to ask a different question: Not "how can we provide all Americans easy access to high quality, low cost healthcare?" but, rather, "how can we begin to systematically reduce the demand for more and more healthcare services and products?"
So, although our collective desire is to have a healthcare system that is easily accessible by all and delivers high quality care at low cost, the underpinning economic, cultural, and technological pillars on which our current healthcare system rests results in greater and greater transfer of wealth from our general society to the healthcare industry without necessarily producing a 'healthy' society.
Our healthcare system is not 'broken'. It is actually extremely successful in accomplishing what it is inherently (although perhaps not intentionally) designed to do.
Lots of words but no solution! Hahahahahaha
It's not a matter of fixing American health care, it's a matter of fixing the health of Americans. CNN and activists like 'Michael Moore' are always going on about how great health care in Europe is, always posing the question 'why is the quality of health care so much better in France or Germany that it is in the US?' They always come to the same conclusion, that health care is better in Europe due to Socialized medicine. Health care is better in Europe because Europeans are, for the most part, much healthier than Americans. Try and find a fat person in France or Germany; they barely exist. I drove 6,500 kilometers around Europe and it took 4 days before I found an 'obese' person............and HE was an American tourist The reason the quality of health care in Europe is 'so much better than in the US is because the people are healthier and require care less frequently............plain and simple. The US news is full of stories about '200 pound 10 year olds. and people so fat that they haven't left their home in years because they can't fit through the front door. This is the reason that Socialized medicine would be unsustainable in America............there will never be enough money to provide the amount of care necessary for not only an 'Obese Nation' but one where the 'baby boomers' alone would be enough to max out the system.
I found the following study very interesting as it addressed some commonly held opinions and beliefs:
Disease and Disadvantage in the US and England
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/17/2037.full
Results The US population in late middle age is less healthy than the equivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer.
I found the following study very interesting as it addressed some commonly held opinions and beliefs:
Disease and Disadvantage in the US and England
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/295/17/2037.full
"Results The US population in late middle age is less healthy than the equivalent British population for diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, myocardial infarction, stroke, lung disease, and cancer."
"This conclusion is generally robust to control for a standard set of behavioral risk factors, including smoking, overweight, obesity, and alcohol drinking, which explain very little of these health differences."
"In many diseases, the top of the SES (socioeconomic status) distribution is less healthy in the United States as well."
"Level differences between countries are sufficiently large that individuals in the top of the education and income strata in the United States have comparable rates of diabetes and heart disease as those in the bottom of the income and education strata in England."
I found the last point kind of surprising, given that the top income people in the US would have access to the best health care choices and the best health care that money could buy, in addition to the finding that higher educated people have better health habits and thus better health. The high income people in the US have no better health than the low income, less eduated Brits who relied on the oft-maligned socialized medicine system they were stuck with.
We need to be careful to check the facts before we rely on people's assertions which may either not jive with the facts or, as a previous poster pointed out, be purposefully misleading in order to protect vested financial interests. I'm not wedded to a particular approach or ideology. I want to see what works from both a health and economic perspective and go with that.
I'm a Taiwanese living in California and I completely agree that a universal health care system is important.
Back home in Taiwan, I pay a health care fee of USD$15-40 per month (depending on income) and get very good medical treatments whenever I get sick. I pay about USD$5.00 for going to a local clinic and USD$10-40 for going to a good hospital. This cost includes medication. And dental care is included in health care. Thus in Taiwan I can always receive treatments before my problem becomes serious.
Here in California, I have very good health care plan provided by my employer. But the treatments I receive, according to past experiences, are much inferior than what I had in Taiwan.
Under Taiwan's universal system, the government is able to not only bargain with medical providers but also to reduce unnecessary expenses. Of course the Taiwanese system isn't perfect. For example, doctors and other medical professionals are earning less. But overall it's very satisfactory. I know that many Taiwanese immigrants here in the US continue paying the health care fee, only to go back there for better medical care when one has any serious disease.
What then can the insurance company do? One can still buy insurances that covers the cost of a better ward, a personal nurse, or some (few, exceptional) treatments not paid by the government's system.
I am also a Taiwanese living in California. There are basic fundamental services from our government, and universal health plan is one of them. Taiwanese can live without less worry and save a piece of mind on the illness that much anymore.
From the free market to now universal health care system, I understand how precious the availability of worry free power is. People in the US need to open the mind and try to think clear, ideology or worry free.
I watched Mr. Zakaria's program on US Health Care problems. A lot of misrepresentations of facts. US Primary Care does not get paid $100.00 per visit as he said ( Compared to $14.00 in Taiwan). Per visit payment is arpound $50.00 and he forgot to mention about the associated Malpractice Insurance Payments that the physician has to pay. He also forgot to mention that an average Taiwan Physician sees 200 patients daily. If US Physician begins to see 200 physicians daily , the patient will have 1 to 2 minutes with physician and will straight go to their Attorneys to sue and make money or the State Board of Medical Examiners will be flooded with complaints due to Unrealistic expectations. Mr. Zakaria also forgot to mention that patient's families have unrealistic expectations and wants everything done at six figures cost ( because they do not have to pay for it) even though physicians tell them about the futile care.
The problem of rising health care cost can not be fixed by Government, economists and CNN reporters who do not have slightest clue about the bleeding points. Unless you involve Primary Care physicians in your discussions, the problem will get worse. I can go on and on with examples of bleeding points in US health care system, which is not being addressed by anyone and our Govt. is not interested in fixing it . This is a topic for discussions during their election campaigns and they want to keep it alive. Mr. Zakaria, if you are really interested in giving the correct picture of the problem, its causes and solutions, please let me know with your email address and I can provide you with the problem and its solutions.
I read United States has a shortage of Primary Care doctors. So, how do we encourage people to become Primary Care doctors so they aren't forced to see 200+ people a day?
And, if we want well educated people to become doctors in the first place, we really need to begin well educating our children... Would there be plenty of jobs to be had in the Healthcare industry if the money paid to insurance wasn't all going elsewhere.
Interesting. A one hour show designed to help understand the inefficiencies of our current system, and why it is so costly. Yet not a word (unless I missed it) about malpractice. Studies show that over 20% of healthcare spending is the result of doctors practicing defensive medicine, to protect themselves against malpractice.
We are an indentured labor force now, working to have health care and we're the only western country with this kind of system.
Excellent program. Realistic.
I am glad you saw the flaw in the "savings account" solution: It does not work because Health care costs pile up at the end of one's life and to an unpredictable extent. and in a small minority of the "rally sick" To keep costs affordable, It is necessary to get ALL people to contribute from the day the are born, while still healthy. The Paul Ryan solution (govmt contributions to health savings account) will scale the size of the benefit to what budgeting politics demands irrespective of actual lifetime health care costs and citizens won't know the difference until they confront this large unpayable bills. By that time it's too late.
Thank you for airing this show on healthcare. I have worked in the healthcare system for many years. Your program was on target regarding the big issues and where the costs really are. Hopefully everyone will see this show.
I am a 75 years old canadian from Montreal under the canadian medicare system.
I have yet to meet someone in Canada that had to declare bankruptcy because of health problems.
Private companies are in business to make profits, easy to understand.
The one thing that puzzle me in regard to some individuals in the US is that they see no problems in paying an insurance premium of many thousands of dollards but call an equivalent of money a TAX, and they are ready to go to war against that security even though it would cost them less. Maybe a rewording could do it.
Hope that one day you will have the security to live in peace without having to fear about being able to pay for your health care. You will all sleep better. Knowing that members of your family, your friends, neighbors and yes people you do not know will be taken care of is worth a lot. This is what society in a civilized world is all about.
Andre, Montreal, Canada
Thanks Andre, I agree and I hope the same for the US...unfortunately, I dont feel optimistic about this. I think people are too brainwashed by Fox News and the Tea Party at this point. It is very sad, we could have had a single payer system like Medicare for everyone and that would have been vastly better than what we had. Unfortunately, DUMB people in this country fight against their own self interests. Thanks for the well wishes. I wish I was Canadian.
Great job Fareed. Very informative.
The massive hlaeth care law the Democrats passed is designed to drive all private insurance companies out of the hlaeth insurance business by making them prohibitively expensive. At the same time it offers the Government plan at artificially low rates. If left unchecked, it will have the same result; rationed hlaeth care. *
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Excellent program – we (the US) should be ashamed of ourselves for how lousy our healthcare system is!
I watched on TV, Sunday evening Fareed Zakaria reporting on Health Insurance. He praised the Health program in Switzerland but omitted to disclose the cost that each person must pay per month. My sister, 76, in Geneva, pays CHF 1,300 ($ 1,400) per month and her husband, retired, pays CHF 800 for a total of CHF 2,100 ( $ 2,300).!!!
@Jeant-Pierre.
Your calcs don't add up, their just not true.
This guy Zakaria is Obama's mouthpiece. It's funny how he glossed over the cost (taxes people pay) for Britain's NHS. He should stick with foreign policy issues and not try to show himself as expert in fixing economy and healthcare. My father is on medicare & only bottom feeder doctors accept's that insurance as it pays such low fees to them. People I have met from Canada & Britain claims their NHS is c**p compared to healthcare provided in US. Zakaria – have some objectivity in your reporting. For the record I am neither Republican nor Democrat; just Independent.
Insurance companies already make life and death decision, they have been doing that for a very long time. This is a fact and i know you can research and prove this fact and expose the truth. It is interesting that people think that it just started with President Obama"s health care plan. You could expose that fact on one of your shows. I noticed on your show tonite that the show, only showed minorities getting health care which implies that the 5% that make up 50% of our health care cost are minorities which is not the case. I don't if that was done on purpose which fuels the fire for those that oppose Obama care. I look at all your programs and appreciate your work, but this show misrepresented the problem. Check your statistics on how many poor whites are suffering from the lack of health care.
Talking about Us healthcare costs and not talking about the role of mal practice suits both insurance costs and additional test and procedure is disingenuous. How about a follow up attempting to put costs into the equation?
I am from Taiwan.
Taiwan's Health care has a lot of problems.
Don't be stupid.
Maybe It's cheap for patients.
It's quite expensive for healthy people.
I am a Taiwanese doctor practicing in Taiwan. The Taiwanese healthcare system is far from such a perfect model depicted in the show. For me as a healthcare recipient, the government makes me and my employer pay close to 7& of my monthly salary for compulsive coverage, that's on top of the 20-40% income tax that I have to pay. For me as a healthcare provider, the government's payout is so pitiful that each doctor in private practice has to see about 30 patients a day just to break even. Example: The government pays less than $3 US dollars per Urine Catheterization performed (cost of Foley tube & urine bag included), and later on if the government (acting as both auditor & final arbitrator) determines that the procedure was not "necessary", it fines the doctor $300 (100 times the amount) for this single disputed charge alone. One would think that the government would have no trouble containing healthcare cost with stringent measures like that, but no, the healthcare system generates a deficit every year that has to be remedied by ever-increasing premiums. The reason: The system is unable to control misuse & waste by patients who think healthcare is dirt cheap.
I am M.D. in Taiwan. It’ s nice to know the discussion about Taiwan’s Healthcare on your show. But I must point out some viewpoints about Taiwan’s Healthcare are not true actually. “Single payer system” is not the only reason of the low cost of health expenditure in Taiwan now. For example,the percentage of ageing population and their associated costs in Taiwan is far less than those in US. And the percentage and costs in transplantation in Taiwan is also far less than US. (For example, the number for heart transplantation per million population in USA is 8, and Asia average is only 0.03, which is more 200 times.)
Moreover, there are over 200 hospitals(around 25% of total hospitals) in Taiwan are closed after the start of Health Insurance in 1995, and nowadays there are around 25% of doctors leaving the Healthcare system for cosmetics business due to many difficulties. Of course you can still say the costs in Taiwan are still low than US, but they will costs more soon in the future.
I agree that his remarks on Taiwan is not accurate. I am a US physician. He says MD in Taiwan makes $14 per visit and the MD he interviewed said he sees 200 patients a day, 6 days a week, his income $873,600, not bad.
Are you a machine? Of course not, then 200 patients/day, 6 days/week is impossible! The quality is questionable.
I felt compelled to say thank you, for bringing some good people to light in your reporting. The people that you mentioned who are showing the results and failures of our current system (also some available changes that can be made). These facts and results are apalling and yet almost no one is doing anything to make a difference. The items that your reporting mentions, need action to eliminate the deficiencies, and make some changes to our system. The time for action is long overdue Thank you to the people that participated in your broadcast. Mr. Zakaria your report is well recieved and much appreciated..
I didn't give up my Taiwan nationality just in case that I have to retire in Taiwan.
The way Taiwan does it, is that they keep cost low.
Organized medicine and doctor have to charge fee according to the guide book. You can't be rich becoming a Taiwan doctor. Taiwan doctor are not in million dollar student loan either after their training.
There is no insurance company taking profit. The government is the insurer.
Everything is digitized. Everyone has an ID card which link to networked database. All patients' billing history, record go with them in their ID card. They are able to keep administrative cost down to 6~7% of the total cost as oppose to in US, 22%.
Drug company makes less money also. The drug of the choice is typically effective and its cost within reason.
Everyone has to join and the government subsidize the premium for the poor.
It works great. My father lives in US and he goes back every year for annual check up.
On the upside, US medicine has better quality, but only the adequate insured ultra poor and ultra rich can afford them. lolz Everyone else has to go bankrupt. lolz
People in Taiwan pay for the people who live overseas.
The overseas come back to Taiwan to take advantages only.
Pay no tax. Pay nothing when being overseas. Pay a little to use a lot of healthcare resources.
Why did you ignore the elephant in the room? That is that most legislators (members of Congress) have great health insurance, paid for the by American taxpayers, that they have for life once they have served for 5 years. So, the press recently that Mitt Romney turned 65 and wasn't enrolling in Medicare applies to the other candidates as well. I'm sure that Newt Gingrich has his Congressional benefits as a retired member, as does Rick Santorum, and as will Ron Paul. Why do they care if the Anerican people have accessible, affordable health insurance?
Either we get what our national elected Politicians get or they get what we get.
Research the candidates and Rock the Vote.
We got some laws to change.
they do that because they do not know what iocmunmsm is. The obamacare plan is not communistic.it is socialistic but no more so that the social security system, the welfare system, the public school system, etc etc.Socialism has been creeping forward for many years now and the U.S.A. has become less than the republic but more than a third world police state.At any rate, every time the government messes with something, that something returns to us completely hosed. The same thing will happen once they bureaucrats get their claws into our healthcare system.
I wrote my senior thesis on this topic last year at Providence College, except I did a case study on Cuba versus the United States, comparing costs, health care service infrastructure, and health outcomes. Yes, Cuba is probably a polar-opposite case to the United States. But in my research, I was able to show how the U.S. could model its system off a universal, community-based health care syste, such as Cuba's in our capitalist, private insurer model. It would work! Change is scary, its monumental, its costly...but its necessary.
Loved your summation and reference to 1960 nobel prize winner's input and story of Camden, NJ. THANK YOU!!!!
I hope the text of your show is available as we don't have a recorder.
Paying for preventative, diagnostic and other so called 'basic care' via an HSA is absurd.
For those of us who do not qualify for assistance, we are expected to spend 10k a year before insurance kicks in and that is after paying our 250$ per month premium through my husband's employer for being healthy. So we must pay 12,500$ per year to keep ourselves healthy. And we are the lucky ones.
To be qualified in the US as poor one has to have an income so low as to cause health problems from stress, lack of access to healthy food, air, water, security, transportation etc. and not have access to preventive care.
I am on peritoneal dialysis which means I self dialyse every night, on my own without any help from anyone. I use two bags of dialysis solution every night and the peritoneal machine, which I understand is valued at $36,400. Much to my utter amazement , I discovered (although I see no bill and am not myself out of pocket) that the dialysis company is charging me over $50,000 per month, although I only have one blood test per month. They are charging me for a daily visit at a minimum of $1400 PER DAY, every single day. I understand this is the norm. Why is this exaggerated billing allowed to continue? With this kind of billing, it is no wonder that our health care costs are so high.
There is still no cap on medical lawsuits. Physicians are always worried about malpractice lawsuits which leads to unnecessary medical tests which cost hundreds of billions of dollars. This fact is unfortunately ignored for very longtime and this has to be discussed if anyone is serious about reducing the healthcare cost and fixing the system.
During the program it was mentioned by Mr. Zakaria that when the very sick patients are not repeatedly admitted to the hospitals then the big players feel threatened. Actually the hospitals and doctors would be much happy if the patients can be treated successfully as outpatient since they end up losing money in treating such patients especially if they are repeatedly admitted.
I agree that the US Healthcare system is fragmented. It is not integrated. Too many policies. The problem is not just universal healthcare; the issue is captialism in America. My belief is that capitlism; which is good, has corrupted our system beyond compare. Most medical companies make money in the US and they are forbidden to do so in many other countries.Many of the countries reviewed by Fareed have government control over price costs. Many private companies are forbidden to increase prices w/o govt approval. The govt set prices for services and medicines.
To battel this in the US; we need specific cost sharing and premiums applied to Medicaid/MK beneficiaries like we have for Medicare/MCR beneficiaries. MK needs to be federally runned ike MCR. we can not have private insurances run MCR or MK. Private insurances need to stick with HMO/CMO/PPO programs. However, the system is so fragmented and broken; we can not run the way it is runned. A universal healthcare option is a good option for people who do not qualify for MCR/MK, are not covered through their employer, and make too little to purchase their own. E-Health or universal health card can reduced the total administrative expenditures (7% of Healthcare GDP) and by reducing this everyone in the US can be covered by a universal healthcare option.
The system can be fixed but I believe to fix it; you have to upset a lot of people. It may not be poplar to most but it has to be done and for politiicans; this could mean loosing their seat.
Basically, like in Taiwan; a reset button needs to be pressed and we need to start fresh or all over. Like what F. Zakaira mentioned in the CNN braodcast and I have studied; Taiwan is a perfect cut and paste healthcare delivery system which has the lowest GDP in healthcare expenditures and no one goes broke because of medical expenses.
See T.R. Reid's Sick Around the World on PBS. It will better illustrate healthcare in other countries: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/view/
The Republicans passed an individual mandate for seniors to purchase Medicare D buying prescription coverage from private health insurers. See page 91 of the Medicare booklet all seniors get and you will see that there is a penality if one does not purchase this insurance (of payment) for prescriptions. Therefore it makes no sense that the mandate for all to have health payment insurance (not just prescription coverage) is being challanged at the Supreme Court. Am I missing something here?
Mr Zakaria, I enjoy listening to your program. I am an EXPAT living in Asia and its pleasant to hear a well thought out argument. I dont agree with everything you say but your approach is admirable.
In your recent piece on Health care, again I find that we all keep asking what America can do for us. Very little thought is given to how we abuse our bodies and then expect cheap remedies. It would be inciteful if we could also compare the PREVENTATIVE methods that have been implemented in the various countries, to augment the cost and reduce the overall burden on the economy. It seems reasonable to conclude that no matter how effective CARE we have, bad eating, drinking and living habits will drive the costs to unreasonable heights. I am not a health care specialist but surely there is much we can do ourselves to cut down on the pills we need, and the number of times we have to visit doctors and hospitals.
I really dont think the answer is just a better system implementation, but must be combined with a greater responsibility on the part of everyone to contribute to solving the problem.
Does anyone know if this global lesson will be for sale on itunes? I haven't seen it yet and would like to download the video to show some friends.
Please do not follow Taiwan! I have been in Taiwan for 2 years, consumers are happy but not the medical providers. If you can read Chinese characters, there are many complaints from both doctors and nurses. Just like Apple iPhone factories, they are working like slaves, prolonged working hours, super high tension, and relatively low paid. They cannot strike, or they'll be fined and sent to jail. They have no malpractice insurance, lawsuit settlements are charging from their own pockets. This is how they can maintain such a low cost. I don't think Obama dare to do this in the United States.
if you watch Stossel on Fox Business News, he brings on a Fox rtoocibutnr to say rather than fix global warming, we would spend our money wiser by taking care of the poor, yet obviously is against universal healthcare. This is contradictory, and Stossel has apparently taken the views of the party of No . He does not advocate civil rights, I categorize him with Glenn Beck now, no more 20/20 for me until they can him if they havent already, this man has either sold out or really has radical ideas
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