The Sad Truth

While reading an article form the New York Times Greensboro, N.C. (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/22/health/policy/22insure.html) about low income famlies like the Lange's family with little or no health insurance it got me thinking. Like the Lange family I can relate in several ways although I come from a middle class family, with a single parent mother in the nursing profession health care has always been a struggle. My mother has health insurance but with my brothers kidney disease that forced him to have multiple surgeries, and a kidney transplant, it's been almost impossible for my mother to keep up with his medical bills totalling in the thousands. Like the Lange family if I was not on the death bad I didn't really ever go to the doctor. This is sad, money shouldn't have this big of an affect on someones health. For many if you can get by feeling sick but getting by it worth the huge amounts of money that you save. Many people like my mother had to work 2 or 3 jobs to cover the expenses, while thousands get multiple jobs to seek health care benefits for their families through there employers but are still drowning in bills.

Uninsured Numbers Rise

The number of people living below the poverty line in the United States increased by 1.3 million last year. In addition, the number of Americans without health insurance grew by 1.4 million, to 45 million; 15.6 percent of Americans have no health insurance. It was the third consecutive year where the percentage grew. These factors go hand in hand together poverty rate is increasing further more increasing less people to be able to afford health insurance leaving America to play catch up with trying to pay for those uninsured.

The large number of uninsured creates a significant strain on the emergency medical system. For-profit managed care has shown a steadily increasing pattern of denying needed treatment. More Americans are dissatisfied with the health-care system overall. Overhead costs are significant. In an October, 2003 Washington Post/ABC poll, by almost a two-to-one margin (62 percent to 33 percent), Americans said that they preferred a universal system that would provide coverage to everyone under a government program, as opposed to the current employer-based system. Both the French and Canadian systems rank in the Top 10 of the world's best health-care systems, according to the World Health Organization. The United States comes in at No. 37. The rankings are based on general health of the population, access, patient satisfaction and how the cares paid for. Although America is advanced in medical technology and is ahead of other countries our system is not working out.