Health Care Inefficiency and Ineffectiveness

Since it has been so long since I have written I wanted to share with you a paper that I just finished for school. Let me know what you think!

Health Care Inefficiency and Ineffectiveness.
Health care is one of the most debated topics of our time. It pulls at the heartstrings of some and questions the personal responsibility of others. It has lead to financial meltdowns for some unlucky individuals plagued with unforeseen diagnoses while concurrently increasing shareholders profits whom many have enough money to cover any unexpected health problem. Everyone has an interest in the way that the system works because individual’s health leads to one’s quality of life. It is unfortunate that the current health care system that is in place in the United States is not working in its current form.
The health care system is both ineffective and inefficient in treating the entire population in a way that is affordable to all involved parties and accessible to all residents. The United States spends more money on health care than any other developed country; in 2004 we spent 16% of GDP on health expenditures. We are outspending countries on health care and our population has worse health than those same countries. Currently our life expectancy and infant mortality is lower than these same countries that spend less on health care. This should be a red flag that signals a major inefficiency within the system.
The current system in the U.S. does not cover all residents and health inequalities and disparities are increasingly visible. This is another example of the inefficiency with the money being spent on health care. I believe that with the obscene amounts of money that are currently being spent on health care could be diverted to offer a system that includes coverage for everyone. The countries that are offering universal health care spend less money than the United States and offer coverage to a larger percentage of the population.
The sole funding of the health care system comes from taxpayers. Almost all residents pay taxes in some form that help contribute to various healthcare programs. It actually goes beyond healthcare programs because the taxpayers are also paying the salaries of our elected public officials who receive health care, and with out the taxpayer they would be without a job and healthcare. It is hard to understand how we got to a point where there are taxpayers paying for others health care and be unable to get care for themselves. The taxpayers also end up paying high costs for bankruptcies which were caused by high medical costs of individuals that were either uninsured or underinsured. I believe that this is one of the major inefficiencies in the current system.
I think that the system became so inefficient and ineffective because of the division of care. Care is divided between the public and private sectors. The two sectors have independent goals that complicate the process further. The private sector aims to make profit and the public sector aims to give care to those who can’t care for themselves. Much of the private sector that offers health care are publicly held, for-profit companies that aim to try and satisfy their stockholder and hold their own self-interest above the moral responsibility of caring for others. Many of these companies have spent millions of dollars creating complicated formulas and business plans that allow certain patients to receive certain types of coverage and others with less or limited coverage. They also offer complicated plans littered with exclusions and exceptions that not only intimidate the consumer but make it extremely difficult to get insurance they may need.
In addition to general inefficiencies of the current system they are also quite ineffective at looking at the possible long-term problems associated with healthcare. The Unites States’ culture is run with a concentration to satisfy short-term needs and reward based on instant gratification. This has proven to be ineffective because we have neglected to look at long-term planning. We now have large proportion of the population being elderly, costing us much of our increased expenditures, and a continued increase of the prevalence of chronic disease that we could have better handled through long term planning and forecasting of population statistics. I don’t think that either the public or private sector thought about this current problem until it was too late and an extreme burden on the system. We are now paying the consequences from our absence of long-term planning and stressing an already stressed to the max system.
In addition to overlooking the long term, we have also lessened the importance of prevention. If we have less people in the system then we have less money going to secondary and tertiary care, thus reducing total costs. It costs much less money to fund a prevention program than to treat a life-threatening, preventable disease. Resources are able to be diverted to areas where they will be put to greater use and thus be more effective in helping to treat patients and save lives. This has been adopted by both public and private organizations on a small scale but needs to be deployed on a large scale in order to make a serious dent in the current crisis.
I believe that the government holds the ultimate responsibility for ensuring the health and quality of their people. The constitution states that a primary role of the government is to promote the general welfare of the people and should continue to try and accomplish this. I don’t believe that the government will, nor should, solve every problem, but I do believe that they have the final say in regards in regulating the system, enforcing laws, and making sure everyone has access to care. I believe that the free market has better abilities to offer health services, perform research, and develop technology but they need guidance, regulation, and laws to abide to.
The government needs to set regulations that will reform our current inefficient and ineffective system. I believe that the government should needs to base their regulations on universal coverage and long term planning. They should enforce regulations that provide affordable coverage to all and make illegal to reject coverage of pre-existing illness.
Although the current standing of the health care system is dismal without reform, it has great potential for improvement. It is the challenge of both the private and public sectors to create ways to succeed in offering universal, comprehensive coverage to all who want it. Health care is a hot topic that will be debated as long as there is a health care system. The lens to look through is not one of doubt but of one certainty. Certainty that there is a solution out there to our current health care crisis that doesn’t eliminate the free market or regulations plan to grant coverage to all.

Convenience has saturated my life...

My Blackberry alarm began sounding "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. at 7am this morning, I chose to hit snooze till 7:30am. I just wasn't ready to say hello to the world, and my Blackberry makes it so easy to put off that hello for another ten minutes. Alarm clocks are no longer need, since I can now customize my alarm in order to allow for a easy awakening every morning. Seriously, I can now pick a peaceful song or annoying alarm tone, the number of minutes I would like to snooze every time I hit the button, and the volume of the alarm. Before I'm even awake I rely on technology to start my day for me.

I have been so programmed to think that everything in my life should be simple, quick, and easy that when life throws a wrench in the mix, I easily get frustrated with the lack of smoothness on my daily adventures. I contribute my frustration of trivial set backs such as the stone age speed of an old computer, traffic on a Monday at noon, long lines at Starbucks, and failure of my DVR to record "The Rachel Maddow Show". I contribute my annoyance of these minor inconveniences to the way my life has changed in response to technology and its continuous and seemingly infinite ways to improve and add ease to most components of my life.

After I decide to to take on the challenges of the day, before I am even out of bed and after I hit the "dismiss alarm" option on my Blackberry to stop the 10 minute snooze, I take a look at the emails that have been sent overnight. Most which are spam and notifications of news that media outlets think I would be interested in. Email before I'm even out of bed, who would have thought 3 years ago? I finally put down the Blackberry and make a way to the bathroom to handle my morning bathroom routine, in order to avoid offending people throughout the day.

I don't think that I am alone in my addiction to technology. I believe that people all over the world have become accustomed to a world of convenience where information is at our fingertips, news is now reported on a minute by minute basis, thousands of songs can be carried on an ipod the fits in the palm of your hand, and a hard drive can be carried on your key chain. Its absolutely amazing what has been developed in the technological world in order to help satisfy the market for ease.

I had not even gotten out of the house before I ran into a minor mishap with my love affair with convenience. I had to print a project for school that was due at 9:30am. I plugged in my flash drive to my laptop and began to print my document. I knew I had low ink in my printer but I didn't think that it was out, which i figured out once the printing began. I then took my flash drive to another computer and plugged it in and thats when the frustration started. THe computer I plugged my flash drive into took about 4 minutes to recognize that it was there, another 5 minutes in order to open the document, not to mention every time I tried to switch to a different window, in order to try and make good use of my time while I waited for the document to open, the computer went into sensory overload. I felt like the internal parts of the computer couldn't keep up with the simple idea of closing windows, changing windows, or reading the headlines on The New York Times. My anxiety was starting to get to me because it was getting closer to 8 am, which is when I planned on leaving for school. 30 minutes later I had printed my document and been on my way. I think that it was a combination of an outdated computer trying to multi task, the absence of patience on my part for slow computers, my reliance on convenience, and my fault for leaving the printing job till the last minute.

And yes, the slow computer was a PC. I have recently made the change, like many others, to a MacBook. I couldn't be happier and I think that my frustration with lack of technological ease and convenience has increased since that purchase. The MacBook runs a flawless operating system, much like that of President-elect Barack Obama's campaign for presidency. (I had to get some politics into this non-political blog.) THe computer does everything it is supposed to with no frustration. I can multi-task, search the internet, write a blog, look through photos, and read emails, all with out any waiting or error messages. In fact, before I got dressed I hit the "dashboard" key on my function keyboard and it provided me with the weather for San Diego. I got dressed and left the house.

All this technology and I had not even made it until 8:30 am. We have come to point in time where technology of convenience is a necessity for our lives. Our culture has embraced convenience and it has transformed our society. We have become inpatient and easily frustrated when our technology fails, yet rely on it day after day so that we can try to pack more and more into a period of 24 hours. Convenience has saturated our lives and I'm not sure what they will think of next or how much more convenience can be packed into my life. I'm happy when things go my way and annoyed when they don't. I'm going to pledge to be more patience with the little things because technology can't solve everything in this far from perfect world and convenience only gets you so far.

Could there possibly be an end to my political rants?

As I sit here contemplating my future level of interest in the realm of politics, now that Barack Obama has been elected our 44th President of the United States, I realize that I may have entered a world that I may never be able to escape. In the last year I have become so mentally and emotionally involved in the way that our government works, from the corruption that led us into an endless war to the most recent realization that we can each make a difference.

I think that our great country has reinvested in itself this last week. I believe that the election of a black man to the most important job in the world proves that this great nation can lead the world to a better place. My view of this country has been renewed, I am proud, once again, to be an US citizen. This does not come without a cost. During the last 8 years we, the citizens of the US, have allowed the government to take advantage of us and run our reputation into the ground in order to further their political agenda. The Bush Administration has taken our hard earned money and we have nothing to show for it except for high food prices, an pointless war, a stock market in the crapper, less medical coverage, less regulation, a nationalization of the banks, giveaways to wall street, failing infrastruce, falling home prices, excessive home foreclosures, a rising unemployment rate, and a president that no one trusts. The list is endless, but I have a feeling in my heart that this is about to change.

I have to admit that prior to November 4th at 8pm, I was somewhat of a cynic thinking that the presidential election, going with the tradition of the last two elections, would be stolen for a third time by those that have profited the lies and deceit of the last 8 years. I wouldn't have been surprised if the outcome of the election had gone in favor of John McCain. Just the thought of another stolen election made me ill, but the thought also allowed me to feel what citizens of other countries must feel when corruption takes over their elections. The feeling of a muted voice of a citizen in a environment where democracy is just a facade in order to hide ulterior motives and agendas.

I tried to set myself up for disappointment. Every time a friend, a relative, or a teacher said that Obama had the election in the bag I asked them to watch what they said in order to lessen the jinx-ability of the most important election of my lifetime. I wanted nothing more than the those in favor of hiring Barack Obama as our commander in chief to become over confident, like we had been in the past, only to succumb to defeat. My government had not given me much faith in their ability to be honest and truthful to their employer, the citizens of the United States. Prior to the last 8 years, we have taken for granted our freedoms and rightfully believed that our government would always act in our best interest. We have witnessed that we can no longer keep our guard down and must always advocate, lobby if you will, for our unalienable rights of life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness.

When the polls closed and the news stations began to call the election, I couldn't help my tears, joy, and raw emotion. We had overcome the tragedies of the past and entered into what the future will call a defining moment of US History. I cannot place another time in my life where I felt like I did Tuesday night. In an instant everything changed: the world changed their views of America, I had restored faith in my great country, I was excited to think that my voice made a difference, and that we were embarking on a journey that would change the country for the better. Barack Obama is a breath of fresh air that was well needed and long awaited. I had watched him carefully during his campaign and believe that he will be one our great presidents, who will end the politics of broken promises, hidden agendas, and special interests.

Now, I'm not sure I want to escape our country's political system. I think that instead of complaining about the past I will be able to praise the future.

I Stand Corrected

So it looks as though I wrote about some information that was proven to be incorrect. Sarah Palin never requested to ban books from the Wasilla library, thank god.It seems as though she did ask the librarian to what the process was to remove books from the library but never asked to actually ban books. Palin stated that a parent had asked her the very question, and she followed through and asked the librarian the process.

Although, I am still not a supporter of the McCain/Palin ticket (or shall we say Palin/McCain) I am glad that this rumor has been dismissed, and wanted to make sure that I passed that along.

A Book Banner for VP? God, I hope not!

I have surprised myself these last couple of weeks by not writing about my crazy addiction to the political events that have made the century, and only 8 years in to it. I have watched the recent political events diligently, my emotions have ranged from extremely entertained to deeply saddened to deeply motivated and to deeply ashamed of the recent mockery of our political system. This mockery has clearly turned this presidential election from a campaign about who is better qualified to lead the leaderless American people to a game of trickery and deceptive actions that all of the US should be ashamed of. We should be focused on strengths of the candidates, each emphasizing what exactly they can do specifically for you and me, not a campaign based on hypocrisy and lies aimed at attacking the opponent.

And on to my points...

So I have been on an emotional roller coaster ever since Sarah Palin, Governor of Alaska was chosen as the vice presidential candidate to accompany John McCain on his mission to claim the title of President of the United States of America. I'm confused on where to start since my mind is overflowing with thoughts regarding Miss Alaska. Do I start with discussing her time as a mayor in Wasilla, Alaska turned Governor of the state, or her family values that have resulted in her sexually exploratory daughter who has ended up with a baby bump, no wait, my personal favorite her request to a librarian to ban books (gasp), or a bridge to no where which she seems to manic-depressingly support... or abandon, or finally but not finitely her record of retaliation towards people that stand in her way and don't see eye to eye on her beliefs.

I don't believe that McCain picked his first choice for vice president, I think that he picked Palin because that was his only chance at trying to win this election. McCain is disconnected from Palin, clearly shown from their speeches that they gave at the RNC. Palin's speech was clearly made to the right, McCain's speech was clearly made with the moderate's interest in mind. She mocked Barack Obama as a community organizer who she stated had no responsibility, and McCain advocated community organizing by getting involved in the community to make a difference.



Palin is being used to attract the radical, evangelist, right wing conservatives, which I believe she will do successfully. This despite being a hypocrite and advocating abstinence only education when she proved perfectly doesn't work, hence her daughter Bristol's premarital pregnancy. It's funny because I empathize for Bristol and her boyfriend who has described himself as redneck. To be pregnant at such a young age is going to be tough for her not to mention she will be exploited by the media for a long time, much at her mother's doing. I don't think that her daughter's pregnancy really even matters in the long run in the race to the white house, i just think that it reflects poorly on the republican party and continues to build a case that supports their incredible goals at being the best hypocrites they can be.

Palin has proved that she is a wonderful speaker that engages the audience and a pro at reading a teleprompter. She seems like a loving mother, although I again question her family values leaving her family and her special needs infant to run the country with McCain not to mention in a way exploiting her daughter to the world by accepting this position. Now some may call that a sexist statement but let's all look at this as realists. She is a mother that chose to have 5 children, she should be responsible enough to parent them the best that she can. The case could also be made with Obama and his children, except his daughters are prepubescant.

Although her speech gained attention of the country, it was in my view in poor taste. She lied numerous times about Obama's stand on the issues, and portrayed herself as a scathing women who has an overly inflated ego about her self, and calls herself a pitbull in lipstick. I'm not even sure if that's a positive or negative thing. But she isn't telling the country everything we need to know. She wanted to ban books from library including the Harry Potter series, Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and others that you can find at the following link: Books Palin tried to Ban . She supported the bridge to nowhere until she didn't support it. She claims that she said "thanks, but no thanks Washington," for the money to build it, but in fact she took the money and used it in other ways. The state of Alaska had been working on reform long before they were introduced to Sarah Palin, but she seems to accept the reform as her own personal accomplishment done in only 21 months.

I want to see her give an interview to the Press, but unfortunately it seems as though that may never happen. The McCain campaign stated that they are going to focus on speaking directly to their audience, this is a cleaver way for the campaign to cover up what they really mean - they won't leave her vulnerable to more bad press and embarrass her and the campaign with her lack of knowledge on current events and the issues of today.

I feel badly for McCain because I think that he doesn't have control of his own campaign. He is a maverick, but not in this election. It seems that he is being controlled by the Republican machine that has ruined the name of this country and wants nothing more than to continue the same bad policies that support the rich and scheme the poor. Palin as choice for VP may help win him the election but will pave the way for another 4 years of Bush-like politics and a continuous downward spiral of our already failing economy.

A book banner for VP is not the choice the US needs, because we all know that VP is normally a 4 year stepping stone to the presidency. One can only imagine what that would be like.

Guestbook

I'm setting up this guestbook so that I can get a sense of who is visiting my blog. If you will, please stop by and add a comment about whatever you like. Don't forget your name, if your not registered with Blogspot. Thanks for reading!

Couldn't Be More Pleased - In More Ways Than One

I really wanted to take the time to thank everyone who has in some way commented and given me feedback on my writing. I appreciate it more than you may know. I know that we are all busy creating the lives that we live and trying to make everyday count in our own ways, to that - I need to say thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts on life and the puzzles that I am hoping to solve. The act of responding to my craziness is even more dear to my heart, I am so fortunate to have people that enjoy my writing, whether or not they agree with my beliefs and feelings. Not to mention, the corrections with my grammar. I have to admit I often post my blogs without proofing them because by the time my thoughts have been expressed, I'm exhausted.

Now, I want to clarify a comment from Don on my previous blog. So the article that I was referencing regarding the book "Obama Nation" was in fact from the Washington Post but it was from their editorial pages. I do believe that their newspaper is more conservative than my liberal favorite, The New York Times, but their editorial authors may not be as conservative, hence the article titles "Par for Corsi" ( Washington Post Article - Par For Corsi ).

Don, Thanks for challenging me with your comments I do appreciate it!

I never imagined that I would have people that actually enjoy my writings, in fact I didn't think that I had any talent in the writing arena until I started this blog. I just wanted to simply express my ideas and hope that I could make a small change in this crazy world we call home.

Thanks again, and hopefully we can all make some kind of small change in our lives that will encourage others to make a change in their lives. Whatever your poison of change may be, do it in a way so that others can learn from you. Although my blogette has been mostly political, my current avenue of change has nothing to do with politics. I am simply trying to lessen my judgments that I hastily make about people. I believe these judgments may be clouding the real light that they are trying to shine. I would love to hear about changes that you are hoping to accomplish or any additional feedback that you have to give. Again, Thank you!