I was absolutely gobsmacked to read that medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy in the US. I know of no other country where this is the case.
The figures are really quite staggering. An estimated 1,500,000 Americans will declare bankruptcy this year. Now many people would put that down to Americans chasing the myth of the “American Dream” and buying crap that they really don’t need and certainly can’t afford. A new study (to be published in the August issue of The American Journal of Medicine) however, suggests that 60% of those declaring bankruptcy this year will do so because of medical bills.
Apparently this is a 50% increase in a six year period since 2001, when it was only a meagre 46%. Now don’t make the mistake of thinking that all those bankruptcies must be because they didn’t have insurance. They aren’t. Three quarters – I’ll say that again – three quarters will have medical insurance and they will go bankrupt owing an average of $17,749.
Now we’re not talking elective surgery here are we? Nobody, but nobody, gets a nose job just so they can mortgage their house, be unable to pay any other bills and have to declare bankruptcy. Nor are we talking minor complaints and illnesses. We’re talking life-threatening conditions.
How fucking civilized is that?
Taking someone’s house away and forcing bankruptcy just because they had the audacity to want to prevent a loved one from dying.
How could anyone not think that America has the best system in the world?
I don’t understand how anyone can think it’s the best system in the world, either. Maybe because they’ve not yet watched someone they care about suffer because of the “system,” but the keyword there is “yet.” Everyone gets sick, sometimes! Good post. Keep ’em coming. ~Sheila
I spent 12yrs working in US hospitals mostly ER. OUR SYSTEM SUCKS! We have serious Standard of Care issues and we need single payer NOW!
According to one study, 195,000 per year died due to preventable medical errors in hospitals.
So not only can you virtually count on life altering monetary distress if you need medical treatment and are under insured, but it’s a bit of a gamble on coming out alive and if alive, on a bevy of shiny new pharmaceuticals you didn’t know you needed before.
It seems the meaning of the Hippocratic Oath with its promise to use all one’s healing arts and abilities for the good of the patient has been mostly lost to the profit concerns of Doctors, Lawyers, medical equipment developers and manufacturers, pharmaceuticals companies and insurers.
“I will use treatment to help the sick according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Neither will I administer a poison to anybody when asked to do so, nor will I suggest such a course. ”
As far as patient vs. profit, the examples of chemotherapy and radiation treatment serve to show how a profitable, yet barbaric and poisonous practice, wins out over creating health in patient who needs the immune system, one of the primary systems needed to fight cancer. Yet these profitable poisons are administered daily and with only experimental success while other less profitable cancer treatments are either censored outright or just not acknowledged or studied in depth. It seems something is drastically askew here.
This site has a number of thought provoking articles on the western medical community.
http://www.dormanpub.com/index.htm
The article, THE DEATH OF HIPPOCRATES, whether or not we agree with the author’s take and interpretation, certainly presents a few things to think about regarding the western medical community and its focus.