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The Decline of America: Health Care


    "Our doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes spend much more [than
    in Canada's single-payer system] --$62.1 billion by a 1983
    estimate-- filing out insurance forms, billing patients, and
    collecting."

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Ranking of      Total spending on health care   Low Infant Mortality Rank
U.S.                            1st                     20th
Canada                          2nd                      5th
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    "DON'T WE ALREADY HAVE THE WORLD'S BEST HEALTH CARE?"

    It's certainly the most expensive. In 1987, we spent $2,050 per
    citizen on health care. Canada spent an average of $1,480, most
    European nations even less.

    Unfortunately, spending the most hasn't made us the healthiest.
    Canada, culturally most like the United States, has an infant
    mortality rate 25 percent lower. Their rate of heart disease death is
    20 percent lower. Their average life span --77.1 years-- is almost two
    years longer

"WHY NOT JUST FINE-TUNE OUR EXISTING SYSTEM SO IT REACHES ALL THE
PEOPLE WHO AREN'T NOW COVERED?"

Many proposals for full U.S. health coverage would require all
businesses ("except the smallest) to insure the health of their
workers, with the government looking out for everyone else.

Such fine-tuning can improve our system but won't really fix its
biggest problem: the billions of dollars we waste every year on
 paper-shuffling. (Even the picky Consumers Union recently came to
that same conclusion and endorsed a Canadian-style plan.) In Canada,
according to the latest study, citizens each spent $18 a year for
"administrative" costs," while each of us spent $95 -- for a total of
$20 billion more than we would have with Canadian-style care. That's
not all. Our doctors, hospitals, and nursing homes spend much more
--$62.1 billion by a 1983 estimate-- filing out insurance forms,
billing patients, and collecting.

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For tons more info and documentation [ie footnotes for cited
information], use the GET command on the file named HEALTH INSURANC
[sic]

    ======================================
    To get a file named FILE NAME from the
    archiver (files are two words  separa-
    ted by a space), send the 1-line message

    GET FILE NAME ACTIV-L

    to: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET
    [or: LISTSERV@UMCVMB.MISSOURI.EDU]
    ======================================

    Use GET with the file ACTIV-L ARCHIVE for a listing of
    files available with the GET command.

e.g., send GET ACTIV-L ARCHIVE ACTIV-L to LISTSERV@UMCVMB.BITNET to be
emailed the index of archived files.