Health care

Two interesting health care stories.

'Socialized medicine' has long been a boogeyman in this country that the insurance industry has used to scare people. But an LA Times piece (republished here) reports that the phrase is losing its scare power.

A study from the Harvard School of Public Health reports that...

-Of the respondents, 67 percent said they understood what "socialized medicine" meant. Of those, 79 percent said the term means that the government makes sure everyone has health insurance. Only 32 percent said it means that the government tells doctors what to do.

-Of those who said they understand the term, 45 percent said that if America had socialized medicine, the health care system would be better, while 39 percent said it would be worse.

-Not surprisingly, opinions differed according to respondents' politics. Among Republicans, 70 percent thought socialized medicine would make the health care system worse. Among Democrats, 70 percent thought it would make things better.

Universal health care (as 'socialized medicine' is called in countries that have it) is in place in, I believe, every other western country. Not surprisingly, the World Health Organization regularly ranks the US as having one of the least healthy populations in the western world... the latest report has the US ranked unhealthier than every western country except New Zealand and below such countries as Costa Rica, Morocco and Saudi Arabia.

Lack of access to decent, affordable health care by millions of Americans is not the only factor in this unhealthiness, but certainly it's one of the biggest.

After all, the ranking includes many factors including not just quality of health care, but cost of and access to health care.

In this country, access to health care is like a lottery.

In Oregon, it is a real lottery.

Let's hope that the discourse focuses on providing all Americans access not to health insurance but to health care.