Defend Public Healthcare

A new report from the CDC ( the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention) states that the    incidence, mortality, and medical care costs for C. difficile infections have reached historic highs. From 2000 to 2009, the number of hospitalized patients with any C. difficile diagnoses more than doubled, from approximately 139,000 to 336,600, and the number with a primary C. difficile diagnosis more than tripled, from 33,000 to 111,000 . The estimated number of deaths attributed to C. difficile increased from 3,000 deaths per year during 1999–2000 to 14,000 during 2006–2007 . Ontario still refuses to report hospital deaths associated with C. difficile or other superbugs.   If the number is proportionate to the US figure, about 600 deaths would be attributed to C. difficile per year.  The CDC estimates "e xcess health-care costs" of hospital-onset C. difficile at $5,042–$7,179 per case with a national annual estimated excess health-care cost of $897 million to $1.3 bi

Gallup reports that the percentage of American adults without any form of health care insurance has reached the highest level since they began tracking coverage in 2008. In 2011, 17.1% of adult Americans had no health care insurance. That is up from 14.8% in 2008.  The percentage insured has declined every year since the report started. Gallup reports that it asks 1,000 American adults each day about their healthcare coverage and reports monthly , quarterly , and annual averages. In December 2011, the monthly percentage of uninsured adults increased to 17.7%, tying July 2011 for the highest on record. The USA is leading example of health care privatization in the developed world.  

Here's the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's (OECD's) latest report on U.S. health care funding. The United States spent 17.4% of GDP on health in 2009, much more than the OECD average of 9.6%. Details: Spending per person is two-and-a-half times higher than the OECD average. Total health spending accounted for 17.4% of GDP in the United States in 2009, by far the highest share in the OECD. Following the United States were the Netherlands, France and Germany, which allocated respectively 12.0%, 11.8% and 11.6% of their GDP to health. The OECD average was 9.6%.   The United States also ranks far ahead of other OECD countries in health spending per capita, with spending of 7,960 USD in 2009, two-and-a-half times greater than the OECD average of 3,233 USD (adjusted for purchasing power parity). With less than half of health care funded by the public sector in the USA (compared to 72% for the 34 developed countries in the OECD) and with for-profit

The rolling disaster of privatized health care in the USA was borne out again, this time with Wal-Mart.   Market Watch  reports Wal Mart is increasing its health care premiums by about 36 percent and will stop offering health care benefits for new part-time employees.  Reuters  adds that Wal-Mart is also cutting its employees' health care expense accounts by 50%, providing just  $250 for single employees for uninsured expenses, down from $500 (and $500 for families, down from $1,000). Wal-Mart currently insures 1,000,000 employees.   Wal-Mart spokesperson said,   "Our country needs to find the way to reduce the cost of health care particularly in this economy. The current health-care system is unsustainable for everyone. Like other businesses, we’ve had to make some tough choices.” Large increases in premiums  for employer-based health care plans is the norm in the USA, as is  shrinking coverage  and a shrinking  number of people covered .   Privatized health

The Economic Policy Institute has put together an amazing, interactive chart on American incomes, which allows you to see who got what over different time periods from 1917 until 2008. For the period before the rise of the US industrial labour movement (1917-1936), the top 10% took all of the average income increase. But during the rise of the U.S. industrial labour movement from 1936 to 1971 the top 10% of income earners got 29% of total income growth, while the bottom 90% got 71% of income growth.  Still far from fair, but better than before -- and after. From1971 to 2008, a period coinciding with the decline of the US labour movement, the top 10% of income earners got 100% of income growth, while the bottom 90% saw a decline in their income!   The decline in income wasn't because the economy got worse from 1971 to 2008 -- far from it.  Average income actually went up $9,965 per year.  It was just that the top 10% got ALL of the growth in income. Even over the period 1

World Bank data suggests that the United States has a lower life expectancy compared to the other major developed economies. Canadian life expectancy is now (2009) 2.5 years longer than in the USA. In 1960, before the development of Canada's public medicare system, the difference was a little less, 1.3 years. Indeed, the USA has fallen behind its long term nemesis, Cuba. Cubans now live 78.9 years, a couple of ticks more than the U.S. lifespan of 78.7 years. In 1960 (at the beginning of the Cuban revolution) Cuban's lived 5.9 years less than Americans.

As costs have gone way up for private health care insurance over the last decade, 12.6 million Americans have fallen off employer-based plans  (the main form of private insurance, covering close to half the population).   The percentage of employers offering health insurance fell  from 68% to 60% according to data in a new report from  Kaiser .    But the coverage provided by employer-based private insurance  has also shrunk -- even as premiums increased 113% over the last decade.   Deductibles have sharply increased.   In 2011, 31% of employees have deductibles of $1,000 or over.  That is up from 10%  in 2006.  Even 22% of workers at large firms now have deductibles of $1,000 or more, up from just 6% in 2006.  About three-in-four covered workers pay a copayment (a fixed dollar payment) for a visit to a primary care physician or a specialist physician, in addition to any general annual deductible.  Most workers also face additional cost sharing for a hospital admission or

The premiums for the private employer based health care insurance increased 9% in 2011, according to a new study from Kaiser.    In the absence of a public plan, this is the main way non-elderly Americans get insurance, with about 150 million covered.   While that increase is significantly higher than the last few years, it is in line with the trend over the last ten years, which saw premiums for family plans increase 113%.   The workers' share of the premium has increased by even more: 131% .   That compares with wage increases of 34% on average (and that average includes the wealthy, who have gotten most of the wage increases).   Family health care premiums hit the (incredible) level of $15,073 (US) annually.    On average, workers pay $4,129 and employers pay $10,944 toward those annual premiums. There has been a lot criticism about the ten year agreement to increase the Canadian federal government's transfers for health care 6% annually.  But over ten years that wo

Employer-based health insurance plans have been in decline in the U.S. for years. About 12.6 million Americans have fallen off employer based plans since 2000, Reuters reports .   This is a worrisome trend for the American public as employer-based plans are the main source of insurance coverage, with 169.3 million Americans covered in 2010. About 1.5 million Americans  fell off  employer paid health care insurance plans in 2010 alone according to Census data.  The good news is that the public sector has picked up the slack from the private sector a little bit:  1.8 million more joined government insurance plans in 2010. The Census report also showed that just short of 50 million Americans remained uninsured, 1 million more than in 2009. Part of the fightback: pictures from today's Globe & Mail of Flight Attendants protesting across the country today for a new collective agreement. A tentative agreement was achieved just hours after the protests.  For more on the ten

A new study from researchers at U.S. and Canadian universities has compared the administrative costs to doctors of Ontario's public health care insurance with the US system, where doctors are required to deal with a myriad of private insurance companies. Here's what they concluded : "Physician practices, especially the small practices with just one or two physicians that are common in the United States, incur substantial costs in time and labor interacting with multiple insurance plans about claims, coverage, and billing for patient care and prescription drugs. We surveyed physicians and administrators in the province of Ontario, Canada, about time spent interacting with payers and compared the results with a national companion survey in the United States. We estimated physician practices in Ontario spent $22,205 per physician per year interacting with Canada’s single-payer agency—just 27 percent of the $82,975 per physician per year spent in the United States. US nursi

The privatized health care system in the United States is widely known for being extremely expensive. U.S. citizens are stuck paying (through taxes or by private payment) much more than any other developed country for health care --in fact about 50% more than the next most expensive (Norway), according to the  recently released Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) report on health care spending (discussed here ).  But less well known is that, even though millions of U.S. citizens have no health care insurance, and millions more are covered only by the basic 'medicaid' system, public spending on health care is actually higher in the U.S. than it is in Canada's (largely public) health care system. CIHI reports that U.S. public spending on health care was $3,507 in 2008 (in U.S. dollars), while Canadian public spending was $2,863 (also in U.S. dollars).  That's 22.5% higher.  In fact U.S. public spending was the third highest among the 26 developed coun

The  National Post reports that private health care and home care "business is booming and expected to grow even more in the next decade."  And the Americans are coming:   "The Canadian market is growing and will grow by another 25% at least over the next 10 years," says Peter Thompson, a franchise consultant with Plutus Consulting Group. There are already between 18,000 and 19,000 franchised private health firms in the United States -- a mature, saturated market, according to Mr. Thompson-- but the Canadian market is still in its infancy. That has companies south of the border looking to take advantage of the growing demand in and lack of well-established competition in the market. "The Americans are looking at the Canadian market and licking their chops," Mr. Thompson says. "It is a growing potential marketplace here." David Millman, who bought the rights to a Toronto franchise of a U.S.-based home care provider adds, "There is a lot

The U.S. health care system is responsible for the slower rise in life expectancy in the U.S. compared with other developed countries (including Canada) which have universal health care coverage, according to a new U.S. research study. The Ottawa Citizen reports  the study, by a team at New York's Columbia University, ruled out other factors that are often blamed for the relatively short life expectancy in the US (such as obesity, smoking, traffic accidents and a U.S. murder rate that is among the highest in the developed world). Researchers compared U.S. health-care spending and mortality statistics with those of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.  The study found that life expectancy and health-care costs from 1975 to 2005 rose in all the countries, but costs climbed faster in the United States, while lifespan rose more slowly. Researchers reported that the United States was fifth among the l

A U.S. jury slammed the owners of a  major U.S. nursing home with a $677 million verdict this past summer, sending shock waves through the industry. A class action lawsuit  on behalf of 32,000 nursing home residents blamed staff shortages for the misery encountered by the residents — echoing a common complaint across the country that for-profit nursing homes are too concerned with profits rather than residents. Critics charge that many companies drastically cut payroll expenses to prop up stock prices after Wall Street investment firms went on a nursing home buying spree. "The major problem for most nursing homes in California and in the nation is staffing," said Pat McGinnis, executive director and founder of the California Advocates for Nursing Home Reform. On July 6, the Humboldt County jury found that Skilled Healthcare on numerous occasions violated state regulations requiring it to keep a minimum number of nurses on duty at its 22 homes in the state. The lawsu

Cesarean sections are much more likely to occur in for-profit hospitals than in not for-profit hospitals according to a new study from California Watch. Skyrocketing C-section rates in the USA are raising concerns about women's health and the medical complications that are associated with C-sections. Data from  253 hospitals in the state show a big variation in C-section rates. At nonprofit Kaiser Permanente Redwood City Medical Center, the C-section rate was 9 percent. At for-profit Los Angeles Community Hospital, the rate 47 percent. In Riverside County, hospitals just miles apart had dramatically different rates, even though they serve essentially the same population. Throughout the state, women are 17% more likely to have a C-section in a for-profit hospital. In California, hospitals can increase their revenue by 82 percent on average by performing a C-section instead of a vaginal birth, according to a 2007 analysis by the Pacific Business Group on Health. The group –