employees who pose low risks of ill-health,
while rejecting older employees who are
likely to have more costly health needs.
• It means no end to Wall Street-run
health care, and health insurance companies
making more money by delivering less
care. Private insurers maximize profi t by
authorizing as minimal care as they can get
away with. Profi t-run medicine is not, and
cannot be, full care.
A WE’RE Physician’s
Perspective
PAYING MORE AND DYING SOONER
By Todd Huffman, MD
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is condensed
from a handout a local pediatrician prepared
for his patients’ families.
Bottom line: We’re paying more and dying
more, or at least sooner. Craziness.
What do you mean, “paying more”?
OK, I know it’s not perfect, but isn’t
the American health care system
still the best in the world?
No. Not by a long shot. By almost every
measure, America is much less healthy than
a modern nation should be. Our system of
health care is so dysfunctional and unjust
that we spend more and get less than
almost every other developed nation. We
have the worst of both worlds: complexity,
restrictions and skyrocketing cost increases,
all without the redeeming benefi t of health
coverage for every American.
What do you mean, “less healthy”?
The U.S. is the only rich country that
does not guarantee health care for all its
citizens. In all other wealthy countries,
health care is fairer and cheaper and, in most
cases, produces better results. Though the
U.S. has far and away the most expensive
per person health care system in the world,
we lag behind most developed, and some
not so developed, countries on virtually
every health statistic you can name.
We’re 67th in childhood immunization
rates, right behind Botswana. We do worse
than 32 countries in child mortality under
age 5. Our infant mortality rate is more
than twice as high as in Japan and Sweden,
and worse than in Cyprus and Cuba. And
black infant mortality in this country is still
twice the white infant mortality rate.
We are well behind other developed
countries on measures from cancer survival
to diabetes care. Our citizens are the most
likely among rich nations to delay or forego
treatment because of cost. We’re seven times
more likely, in fact, to report going without
needed tests or prescriptions due to cost
than our neighbors to the north, Canada.
We are so far down the list in medically
preventable deaths that the U.S. is just 45th
among world nations in life expectancy,
down from 1st in 1945, and 17th in 1960.
Again, contrary to public myth, the U.S.
does not have the world’s best care. It has
the costliest. When it comes to health care,
the U.S. is #1 in only the amount we shell
out for health care as individuals and as a
nation. If only it bought better care.
We spend more than $2.5 trillion
annually as a nation, almost $7,000 per
person per year for health care, the highest
medical bill in the world. One dollar in
every six generated by our economy is
spent on health care, twice the average for
rich countries. And yet one American in
every six lacks medical coverage.
At 17 percent of our GDP, health care
is the biggest sector of the economy; it’s
a monster that is consuming a larger and
larger proportion every year, and without
reform could one day bankrupt the country.
It’s a monster that has become the king of
all budget busters, slowly but surely eating
up state and local budgets.
And family budgets, too. Private
insurance now costs more than $13,000 a
year for the average family of four. Health
insurance premiums are rising three
times faster than wages. More for health
insurance, less for everything else.
Even with health coverage, Americans
are paying more and more out of pocket for
health care. Americans are far and away the
most likely citizens of any nation to spend
more than $1,000 per person out of pocket on
medical expenses over the course of a year.
And unanticipated medical costs are
the leading cause of personal bankruptcies.
Two of every three personal bankruptcies
are a direct result of individuals and families
being buried under a mountain of medical
bills. And three of every four bankruptcy
fi lers had private health insurance. Nuts.
What’s wrong with the status quo?
I’m happy with my plan.
Here’s what the status quo means:
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What do you think about health care
reform, about Obama’s plan?
• Health premiums will continue to soar,
as will the numbers of employers deciding
to drop coverage for their workers or going
out of business, leading to more and more
uninsured Americans.
• Medicare and Medicaid costs within 15
years will swamp the economy, skyrocket
the defi cit and break the federal budget.
• More and more Americans will be
getting too little care, too late, and getting
sicker and dying sooner. Think of 50
million people leaving nagging conditions
untreated until they potentially explode
into catastrophes and result in expensive
hospitalization, the costs of which are
passed on to you in the form of higher
taxes and insurance premiums.
• More and more families will be
suffering the double whammy of fi nancial
and health crises, and more people will be
forced to go on disability.
• Private insurers, faced with rising
health care costs, will continue to
preserve profi ts by cutting benefi ts, raising
premiums, co-pays and deductibles, and
further restricting prescriptions, referrals
and diagnostic tests.
• More and more people, faced with
higher deductibles and co-pays, will delay
care or go without. More regular physicals
will be postponed, more screening tests
will be canceled, more prescriptions left
unfi lled, more dental needs left unmet.
• It means no change to a system that
prevents people from changing jobs for fear
they’ll lose their health insurance or won’t
get the benefi ts they do now. It means no
change to a system that invites employers
to game it by seeking young, healthy
It’s no secret that our health care
system in America is sick. The U.S. leaves
the health of its citizens at the mercy of
a crazy, hodgepodge system where some
get great care while others get none at all.
Many millions are uninsured, and millions
more go without care because of cost.
The American health care system is
expensive, ineffi cient, profi t-driven and
treacherous. It is a drag on business, on gov-
ernment and on growth. Health care costs
are already staggering, and unless something
changes, they will only get worse.
Americans and American businesses
deserve and want a better system, one
that remains innovative, strives for the
highest quality and becomes truly for all.
The current system is not meeting our
nation’s needs and is getting worse day
by day. Neither our families nor our fi rms
can prosper in an economy with so much
uncertainty around health care.
The overwhelming majority of
Americans support health care reform,
making health care affordable and available
to everyone. I believe that President Obama
is committed to this goal, to reforming the
health care system for the benefi t of the
American people, not private for-profi t
companies.
And while the reform legislation that we
get in the end may not be perfect, even an
imperfect reform plan beats the status quo.
So, please ignore the naysayers, the
mythmakers, the defenders of the status
quo that make private insurance companies
billions in profi t year in and year out by
denying care to the sickest among us. Please
support health care reform, and show your
support by calling Congressman DeFazio,
and Sens. Wyden and Merkley today. ew
Todd Huffman, M.D. is in private practice at McKen-
zie Pediatrics in Springfi eld.
EUGENE WEEKLY AUGUST 27, 2009 13