What we want sir, is a rationalized health care system. What we have is a patched Rube Goldberg device that should be a disgrace to the richest nation on Earth. When a small island nation that has coped with a half century of near total economic boycott can manage to provide good health care for all its citizens, while our nation leaves 50 millions without health insurance, something is terribly wrong. What is wrong is that our leaders are willing to put their fellow citizens at risk for the sake of profit. Only fundamental, systemic change of the health care system can correct the injustice. Viva Fidel.Too Marxist for you? Perhaps this opinion from a Wall Street journalist and former Dow Jones reporter, Eric Weiner, is more persuasive:
Our health insurance system essentially allows the private sector to dictate who gets covered. Insurance companies spend vast amounts of money determining the risk of covering each patient and trying to deny claims of the patients they do cover. Meanwhile, anyone who falls through the cracks is handed over to the government. This is by far the most costly health care system in the world, accounting for 16% of our gross domestic product in 2004, which is more than twice the average of the 30 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). If you ever wanted empirical proof of how inefficient our health care system is, there you have it.
Nota Bene, Ms. H.