Another thing our far-too-expensive "health care system" is getting us Americans.
Dead.
It's getting us dead. It's killing us. Literally killing us.
From today's Sunday New York Times:
A bit from the article:
The rate at which women die during pregnancy or shortly after childbirth has fallen sharply in many nations as maternal care has improved. The United States — and particularly Texas — is a glaring exception.
In Texas, for instance, according to a study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology, the maternal mortality rate doubled from 17.7 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 35.8 in 2014. Compare that with Germany, which had 4.1 deaths per 100,000 live births in 2014.
In California, the rate fell from 21.5 in 2003 to 15.1 in 2014, but in the remaining 48 states and the District of Columbia the rate increased from 18.8 in 2000 to 23.8 in 2014. The United States as a whole had the second-highest maternal mortality rate among 31 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. Only Mexico had a higher rate.
A big part of the problem is the inequality embedded in America’s health care system. The 2010 Affordable Care Act made health insurance more available, but millions of families still cannot afford the care they need.
Further proof of our obscene, outrageously high, outrageously expensive, even obscene, unconscionable, immoral, heartless, inhumane, extremely poorly named health care system and why we needed the Affordable Care Act. It's also why we need a "single payer" health care system. It's why all states, even those overseen by Republican legislators and governors need to expand Medicaid to their citizens.
Make no mistake, too, our health care costs and expenses are killing other groups of Americans, too.
Even the people on the inside of the health care industry know this. Here's from the doctors themselves.
It's also why Republicans are wrong, deeply wrong, on fighting improvements on our health care system.
News man and Midwesterner Walter Cronkite, who died in 2009, it should be kept in mind, said it best about America's health care system.
We need to fight to change this. We are the only nation on the planet that ties health care to profit, and with horrible, literally lethal results.
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