Showing posts with label single payer health system. Show all posts
Showing posts with label single payer health system. Show all posts

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

America, Meet The New Kid



Here's this morning's Daily Beast:


POLLS
1.Americans' Change of Heart on Health Care

It didn't take long for Americans to come around on health-care reform: A new USA Today/Gallup poll shows 49 percent of Americans saying health-care reform is a "good thing," with only 40 percent saying it is bad. This is a marked reversal from polling from before the legislation was passed and signed, which typically showed the public opposed. Forty-eight percent of respondents also say it's just a "good first step" that needs to be followed up with more action. Additionally, congressional Republicans rate the lowest out of all the major players: 26 percent said their work was excellent or good, while 34 percent say it was poor; for congressional Democrats, those numbers are 32 and 33 percent; for Barack Obama, they're 46 and 31 percent.


I'm finding this not only encouraging, but kind of funny. So like me, many Americans in general were just not sure what this new law involved. And like me, the more they hear, the more they're inclined to think it's an adequate first step, though it needs a lot more work. And like me, they're not impressed with the terror tactics of the opposition.

This morning's professional email inbox held a letter from a Republican legislator warning that this bill will "kill more Americans than the 9-11 attacks."

If you want to guarantee turning off everyone but the most extreme, conspiracy-theory, paranoid among us, this is a surefire winner.

I am so sick of the flapping gums in DC. I don't think I'm alone in that either. I am not brain dead and I do not need you to tell me what to think.

Again, I repeat and in a very non-partisan, "this applies to you all" way: Thanks for getting something done, Congress. Now shut up and make it better.

Wednesday, August 19, 2009

If We're So Great, How Come Our Mothers Die?




I'm doing research for a book and I found something that left me gaping. Literally.

And then I got mad.

I knew that America's education numbers weren't stellar anymore. I knew our maternal mortality rate wasn't as good as we might expect.

But come on - guess how bad it is? What country do you think has a maternal mortality rate equal to the United States?

We must be better than Canada, right? All we've heard lately is how awful their medical program is.

No.

Oh. Maybe the UK, then? The health care debate in the US appears to have put our cousins on defensive, rushing to defend their own system. They must know there's something wrong, right?

No.

Well it's got to be some big industrialized power. What's left? One of the other G8 countries for sure.

Nope. Not by a long shot.

Go search for maternal mortality rates on the Internet. I'm not making this up. These are numbers compiled by UNICEF and distributed by the World Health Organization.

One in 4800 mothers in America dies in childbirth. That doesn't sound so awful, does it?

Compare it to the UK. A mother's odds improve to 1 in 8200 there. Canada? 1 in 11,000. Well at least we've got to be doing better than the Middle East. Kuwait? 1 in 8600. Republic of Korea? 1 in 6100. And in Italy, the maternal death rate is 1 in 26,600.

So what's the country that has a rate equal to ours?

Belarus.

See for yourself. UNICEF State of the World's Children

Go ahead. Tell me again what's wrong with socialized medicine.