Introduction excerpt
A BROKEN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
- 45 million people lack health insurance—24 percent of them children.
- Statistics in 2001 show the United States spending $5,000 for every citizen, with a life expectancy of 69.3 years.
- Japan spent $2,000 per citizen, with a life expectancy of 75 years.
- Sweden spent $2,200 per citizen, with a life expectancy of 73.2 years.
The latest statistics available for 2003 reveal United States health care
spending per citizen at $5,671, yet I have found no statistics demonstrating
significant improvement in life expectancies since 2001 to justify this
in comparison to Japan and Sweden costs per citizen. These statistics
clearly demonstrate a broken health care system.
- Our present system stifles competition, eliminates patient choice of his or her physician, and keeps costs high.
- One half of all personal bankruptcies are triggered by costly illnesses, and yet, three out of four of these persons have health insurance policies.
- Some estimates have concluded as many as 18,000 Americans die per year due to this crisis.
- The crisis has been deemed by many to be ten times as important as the current Social Security discussions. It is still not in the forefront of congressional discussion, and my concern for this neglect is another reason for the book. My hope is that, as a result of your reading, the health crisis will be in the forefront soon.
If this book provides an understandable roadmap, it will have been a success. It is designed to be helpful to all political parties, citizens and businesses. My goal, at the very least, is for the roadmap to create bipartisan support for a bill encompassing the minimum three mandates of Health Security America.
Excerpted from Health Security America: Fixing the health care crisis. Copyright © 2006 by Fred Bannister, M.D. All rights reserved. Lundquist Hills Publishing Company.
Health Security America is the remedy.
Design
by Four Leaf Clover.