Skip to main content

What do you think about your health care?

If you're one of the 27% of Americans defined as having had a serious illness, medical condition, injury, or disability requiring a lot of medical care, or who had been hospitalized overnight in the past 12 months, you probably don't think very highly of it.

In a poll conducted by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, NPR, and Harvard School of Public Health, of those 27% of Americans
...... more than 40 percent say that the cost of their medical care over the last 12 months has caused a “very serious” (20%) or “somewhat serious” (23%) problem for their or their family’s finances. ............One in six sick Americans say that there was a time in the past 12 months when they could not get the medical care they needed (17%). Among the sick Americans who could not receive care, 52 percent report that it was because they could not afford the needed care, and 24 percent say it was because their insurers would not pay for it. Lastly, about one in ten sick Americans (11%) report being turned away by a doctor or hospital for financial or insurance reasons at some time during the past 12 months when they tried to receive care.

Not only that, but many of those respondents also complained of quality of care issues,


  • ........about one in eight sick Americans believe they were given the wrong diagnosis, treatment, or test (13%).

  • About a quarter of sick Americans say that their condition was not well-managed (26%).

  • A quarter of sick Americans report that a doctor, nurse, or other health professional did not provide all the needed information about their treatment or prescriptions (25%) – or they had to see multiple medical professionals, and no single doctor understood or kept track of all the different aspects of their medical issues and treatments (23%).

  • Three in 10 hospitalized Americans say there was poor communication among the doctors, nurses and other health care professionals involved in their care (30%).

  • About one in six sick Americans believe they did not get the tests they thought they needed (18%) [I find that hard to believe], while 15 percent of sick Americans surveyed were tested or treated for something they believed to be unnecessary. [That I can easily believe.]

  • Nearly three-quarters of sick Americans say they want their doctor to spend time with them discussing other, broader health issues that might affect their long-term health (72%), as opposed to just talking about their specific medical problem (21%). [Like that's ever going to happen, in a time of continually reducing reimbursements!]



Shocked! You should be, but then again, maybe not. I wasn't. For-profit health care has never been about the patient. It's only about profit, and how to maximize it.

Someday, we [the US] may come to that realization, as those numbers increase [and they surely will], but how bad do the numbers have to get, and how many people have to die, or suffer needlessly before we do something about it?
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The green tea phenomenon

Despite being a heavy drinker of green tea since my diagnosis, mainly for its cancer prevention, and hopefully cancer curing qualities, I recently have developed a new found enthusiasm for green tea. Now whether it has been the green tea I have been drinking for the past 6+ years, my heavy exercise routine, or just pure chance that has kept my MCL stable, or at least [very] slow progressing, for the past 7+ years is certainly open to debate, but based on past research, I have chosen to believe green tea has at least helped to some degree. So what has given me this new found enthusiasm? Well, a friend of mine, and cycling buddy, was recently diagnosed with bladder cancer, and knowing my daily regimen called to ask my advice on green tea. He had already done a lot of research on the subject, so when I told him my obsession with green tea consisted principally of drinking the least expensive, decaffeinated green tea available (Trader Joe's brand of 18 tea bags for $3, and more recentl...
10 comments
Read more

Alternative treatment blowback

I received some interesting criticism the other day for my stance on alternative therapies. I ......... cannot for the life of me understand why you would not use supplementation and then use an over the counter poisonous liquid which has proven liver toxicity. Especially while taking a statin. She was referring to the use of an over the counter cough medication, I have been taking to help ease the symptoms of my upper respiratory infection. I did this once and vow to never use it again! I have gotten off Lipitor by using Nicotinic Acid and getting much better results but still use COQ10 to protect Liver as you must do while taking Statins. If you are not using CoQ10, I urge you to research this issue. MCL reduces your D3 and should be taken everyday! I use 5000mgs a day. I was sorta taken aback. She was partially correct. I'm against taking supplements, but when necessary I don't have a problem taking over the counter medication, when my ailments finally get the better of me. ...
7 comments
Read more

When is enough, enough?

Today I learned, Lance Armstrong, the most drug tested athlete in the history of sport, is being accused of doping, again . This time by the US Anti Doping Agency (USADA), who claim they have collected blood samples from him in 2009 and 2010 that were “fully consistent with blood manipulation including EPO use and/or blood transfusions.” Really! What took them so long? The French have been trying to make allegations of drug doping stick for years, ever since he won his first Tour d'France, but to no avail. And now the USADA claims to have evidence to support that claim, and they've waited almost 3 years before releasing this evidence. Needless to say, I am skeptical. Then there's this from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO): Increasing the federal excise tax on cigarettes by 50 cents per pack eventually would increase Medicare and Social Security spending, slightly. Eventually? What is the CBO suggesting here? That we should encourage smoking, because if we don't, in...
11 comments
Read more