Health Care: A Creeping Catastrophe

[babylonsister]

Health Care: A Creeping Catastrophe
By Drew Armstrong, CQ Staff


During the week of June 16, Washington found out the price of outrage in America: four dollars per gallon. When gasoline reached that unwelcome milestone for the first time, it cost $52.89 to fill the 13.2 gallon tank of a Honda Civic — the four-door model. By comparison, in 1999’s heady days of cheap fuel, Joe the Honda driver could have gassed up for $14.73. If Joe filled up his car once a week with $4 gas, he’d spend about $2,000 more in a year.

Now consider this: Over those same years, the average health insurance premium for a family of four rose $6,889 — about $5,000 more in annual costs than for gasoline — and that doesn’t include also-rising out-of-pocket health care spending. On top of that, half the 1.5 million people who filed for bankruptcy in 2001 cited health costs as the reason — a tally that experts say has certainly grown since.


UNINSURED AND UNSEEN: These patients receive free dental and medical care at a makeshift clinic set up on weekends near Wise, Va., in a poor, rural area where few people have health or dental insurance. (GETTY IMAGES / JOHN MOORE)


So where, as they say, is the outrage?

The think tank crowd has been talking about a health care crisis for decades, but it was the price of gas and, more recently, the banking meltdown, that had voters and politicians up in arms, dominating the news and political rhetoric.

The truth is that health care has no $4-a-gallon price tag or Wall Street disaster — no easily understandable, universal condition to prompt rapid, immediate reform. Instead, it is a creeping, many-tentacled problem of huge proportion, but one that, because of its fragmentation and its disparate consumer experience, never amounts to a “crisis” in the classic sense of American politics and public opinion.

That does not mean there might not be reform — real reform — during the Obama administration. The next president rides into office on the hope that he will use his political capital to address the current economic situation, and the health care system’s problems make up a great deal of voters’ economic concerns.

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http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=weeklyreport-000002990372

[riverwalker]

1. my hospital is going to lay off

The first time in my 21 years. Yet the CEO of this "non-profit" is getting a bonus of over 1 million $.
We need to remove profit from the equation.

[Juche]

2. It'll be 4 trillion by 2016

My understanding is healthcare will cost 4 trillion by 2016-18, when GDP is 20 trillion.

Problem is about 90% of the economic growth in america goes to the top 5% and corporations so we aren't going to grow our way out of this as all the growth bypasses the american public. So if wages are going up by 3% a year and healthcare is going up by 10% a year it is just a matter of time. Solidly middle class families are already squeezed, and its going to get even worse.