The Obama administration on Sunday signalled it would be willing to compromise on plans to add another "public option" on health care provision as public protests have grown against "socialized medicine," including from elderly Americans, who appear to not know that their Medicare service is provided by the government. Anger has also been stoked by claims that "death panels" would ration health care and decide which patients would be recommended for euthanasia.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Sunday that a new, government-run health-insurance program wasn't the "essential element" of any overhaul plan.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs, said President Barack Obama wants "choice and competition" in the insurance market. Obama "has, thus far, sided with the notion that can best be done through a public option," or government-run plan, Gibbs said Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." However, he said the bottom line is simply that "what we have to have is choice and competition in the insurance market."
On Saturday, President Obama defended the public option at a town-hall meeting in Colorado but signalled he was open to alternative approaches that expand coverage and reduce costs, but don't increase the federal deficit.
The public option, "whether we have it or we don't have it, is not the entirety of health-care reform," Obama said. "This is just one sliver of it, one aspect of it."
About 40 million Americans have no insurance cover and the rise in unemployment and cuts in insurance provision by business firms, is increasing the number. Private insurers are stoking fears among existing members that the Obama plan would result in rate hikes but the President contends his program is geared towards reducing the costs of most expensive health care system in the world, which for many Americans produces a poor output for the dollars spent.
US health care costs are heading towards 20% of GDP (gross domestic product).
Meanwhile, the biggest vested interests - - the private insurers and pharmaceutical firms - - are busy buying favours in Washington DC.
Public policy group, the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), says that nearly one in four current members of Congress had invested some money in health companies during 2007, the most recent year CRP calculated lawmakers' extensive personal finances. That made for a total of between $44.2 million and $93.9 million. CPR says while the market has changed significantly since then, a scan of their 2008 reports show that lawmakers held onto-- or even purchased-- stock in these companies during 2008.
The CPR says lobbyists have spent at least $340 million to safeguard their interests in Washington this year. Corporate political action committees and company employees have also channeled at least $27 million into federal campaign coffers for the 2010 congressional election cycle, with Democratic candidates the top beneficiaries.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has brought in the most from the health sector so far this year at $394,400, followed by Senate Finance Committee member Blanche Lincoln, who collected $324,350, and former Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, who brought in $266,100. All three senators are up for re-election in 2010.
CPR on campaign contributions
OECD on Health Spending 2009:
Finfacts article: OECD Health Data 2009: Percentage of foreign-trained doctors tripled in Ireland and Finland between 2000 and 2007
Total health spending accounted for 16.0% of GDP in the United States in 2007, by far the highest share in the OECD. Following the United States were France, Switzerland and Germany, which allocated respectively 11.0%, 10.8% and 10.4% of their GDP to health. The 30-country OECD average was 8.9% in 2007.
The United States also ranks far ahead of other OECD countries in terms of total health spending per capita, with spending of $7,290 (adjusted for purchasing power parity), almost two-and-a-half times greater than the OECD average of $2,964 in 2007. Norway follows, with spending of $4,763 per capita, then Switzerland with spending of $4,417 per capita. Differences in health spending across countries may reflect differences in price, volume and quality of medical goods and services consumed.
Between 2000 and 2007, health spending per capita in the United States increased, in real terms, by 3.7% per year on average, the same rate as the OECD average.
The public share of health expenditure in the United States (45%) is much lower than in any other OECD country (except Mexico, also 45%), but nevertheless public expenditure on health is higher than in most other OECD countries, because overall spending per capita is so much greater. For this amount of expenditure in the United States, government provides insurance coverage only for the elderly and disabled (through Medicare, which primarily insures persons aged 65 and over and people with disabilities) and some of the poor (through Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program, SCHIP), whereas in most other OECD countries this is enough for government to provide universal primary health insurance.
Private insurance accounts for 35% of total health spending in the United States, by far the largest share among OECD countries. Beside the United States, Canada and France are the only two other OECD countries where private insurance represents more than 10% of total health spending.
Resources in the health sector (human, physical)
Despite the relatively high level of health expenditure in the United States, there are fewer physicians per capita than in most other OECD countries. In 2007, the United States had 2.4 practising physicians per 1,000 population, below the OECD average of 3.1.
There were 10.6 nurses per 1 000 population in the United States in 2007, which is slightly higher than the average of 9.6 across OECD countries.
The number of acute care hospital beds in the United States in 2007 was 2.7 per 1 000 population, lower than the OECD average of 3.8 beds. As in most OECD countries, the number of hospital beds per capita has fallen over the past twenty-five years in the United States. This decline has coincided with a reduction in average length of stays in hospitals and an increase in day surgeries.
Most OECD countries have enjoyed large gains in life expectancy over the past decades. In the United States, life expectancy at birth increased by 8.2 years between 1960 and 2006, which is less than the increase of almost 15 years in Japan, or 9.4 years in Canada. In 2006, life expectancy in the United States stood at 78.1 years, almost one year below the OECD average of 79.0 years. Japan, Switzerland and Australia were the three countries with the highest life expectancy.
