Common Sense Medicine looks at our crisis in health care.
By Dr. Lon Jones, D.O.

If you are fortunate enough to have health insurance that a wealthy employer pays for, you are probably very happy with your health care. Your employer, looking at rising premiums, is not so sure. Most Americans share this concern. Sixty percent would significantly revise our system and 33% would scrub it and start over. Experts looking at the system are certain. The Institute of Medicine, the group from the National Academy of Sciences given the job by our Congress to shape up our health care says there is a "Chasm" between what we have and what we should have for the money we spend. The president of the American Medical Association said the system is systemically ill. When a doctor says that about a patient it means that they need help from outside. Helping such patients survive a crisis is when doctors do their best. When a doctor says that about our health care system he is looking for outside help, i.e. the government, which, as we have seen (see Politics), is a poor source for the help we need. Unfortunately doctors are a part of this system and are also in need of help. Just as unwise activities on the part of the patient contribute to their illness, putting the business of health before the patient's health means that some doctors are part of this problem as well.

     For evidence that our system is indeed ill consider:

• Americans pay more for health care, 15% of our Gross Domestic Product, than any other nation. In 1955 it was less than 5%.

• The Rand Corporation study released in June, 2003 points out that patients are treated correctly only 55% of the time.

• The Institute of Medicine study released in 1999 pointed out that somewhere between 40 to 100 thousand people die annually as a result of errors in medical management.

• Since 1960 our relative performance on most health indicators declined compared to 28 other industrialized nations.

• Compared to these other nations we ranked in the top 5 in our life expectancy in 1950. 

  •  In 2000 we were ranked 27th.  

  • Teen birth rates were the worst.

  • Child injury and abuse death rates in the lowest 5.

  • Death rates of infants, children 1-4 and 15-24 year olds were the highest.

Some people argue that we can't measure the quality of health care by its cost or by life expectancy because genetic and social factors play a more important part in these results. We should not, for this reason, compare our system with that of other developed nations as did the authors of the comparative study in the example above. But the facts are: we are  pricing health care out of the marketplace, access to health care is easy for some and difficult for many, accidents occur in delivering health care. This is why we ranked 54th of United Nations member states when it comes to equitable distribution. We are not getting our money's worth. The Institute of Medicine's 2003 conclusion is right on the mark: "Between the health care we have and the care we could have lies not just a gap, but a chasm."