Discuss 'The Healing of America,' by T.R. Reid

health care article Ms Wong

What she doesn't tell you in her article about health care in other countries, like Germany, is that they pay up to a 20% VAT tax on everything they buy! I was in Germany for 4 years, and the Germans paid 14% on top of every purchase AFTER sales tax!

That's how they pay for the universal coverage. Could you imagine paying an additional 15 to 20 percent at restaurants, grocery stores, gas stations, etc. It's outragious and disingenious for these writers to sing the praises of foreign healthcare systems without mentioning the crushing tax burden that pays for it.

healthcare vs disease maintenance

I wish TR Reid would now investigate the QUALITY of healthcare in America. It is very poor, profit driven and often not science based. Just visit a support group on the internet! He will find angry, frustrated, damaged victims who are helping others with true healthcare solutions.

The healing of America TR Reid

My mother and father were doctors. My father a sick man was a urologist in private practice who did not bill aquarter of his patients, my mother w0orked for a City Health Dept and was unpaid medical superintendent of an Anglicaqn Schoolfor midwives in South Africa. I went to Medical School in 1947. I have been on a salary all my life. I have worked in a Government Hospital (tax supported), UK National Health Service (tax supported), Mayo clinic (Fee for service private practice with all doctors on salary) and for 37 years in the Bronx running Cardiac Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medeical Center. At the Weiler Hospital we were on salary. The money that we were paid came from fee for service billed in our name. We treated privately insured, Medicare, Medicaid and completely uninsured patients all the same. Believe it or not we were sometimes breaking the Law when we did that.We competed to be the best at our craft but never for money. From this experience I have confidence that systems of the kind that TR Reid describes are eminently possible. In the US there are cultural beliefs and entrenched faith in the virtue of profit operating in an adversarial political system that mekes winning legislative battles far more important than real provision of service to the population. The Government has set its sights on the speedy passage of a reform bill. This is written in legislative jargon by people who have never been in the trenches. Careful reading of evolving versions of the proposed reform does not reveal certainty either of universal coverage or of stopping runaway inflation. In medicine, when we are uncertain of the worth of a remedy or the outcome of its use, it is unethical to release it publicly without first testing its worth in a clinical trial. We propose that in our present state of confusion, uncertainty and ignorance we should not proceed with a total overhaul without first testing conflicting approaches in a Clinical Trial.

I have sent plans for such a trial to senators and congressman without reply. It has now been submitted to the Medical Press for formal publication.I shall be happy to send more to readers who are interested.