Democrats Improved Health Care, But They Didn't Fix It

I am not going to tell you that the health care reform passed by the Democrats (and commonly called "Obamacare") did not improve health care in this country, because that would be a lie. It accomplished some things that badly needed to be done.

Among other things, it increased the number of people who will be covered with at least some health insurance (after it fully comes into effect), it prevents the insurance companies from charging more or denying coverage for pre-existing conditions, it prevents an insurance company from dropping coverage when a person contract a serious and expensive illness (or putting a cap on the benefits that will be paid), it increased the age of students who can be kept on their parent's insurance, and it created government grants to help people who need them to buy insurance. All of those things needed to be done.

But the health care reform did not fix our system, or even truly reform it very much. Among the biggest failings of the healthcare reform was keeping healthcare decisions in the hands of the insurance companies (instead of doctors), a failure to put enough emphasis on prevention of illness, a failure to cover all U.S. citizens, and a failure to control the costs of healthcare. Simply moving to a single-payer government system of health insurance (such as Medicare for all citizens of all ages) would have solved all of these problems, but the politicians didn't have the political will to do that.

Conservatives will tell you that the United States has the best health care system in the world. That is simply not true. It is the best for rich people, but not necessarily so for anyone else. The truth is that some states have better health care than others, and even within each states, the healthcare varies widely in accessibility, availability, and quality.

What we do have is the most expensive health care system in the developed world. Health care in the United States costs about $8,000 per person. The second and third most expensive health care nations are Norway and Switzerland, who both spend slightly more than $5,000 per person. Everyone else spends even less than that per person for health care. And the reason they can spend less (and cover all their citizens with decent health care) is because they all have varying forms of single-payer health care systems.

And what do we get for spending so much more per person for health care? Citizens without any insurance coverage, less average visits to doctors and hospitals, shorter hospital stays (sometimes too short), higher death rates overall (including more deaths from asthma and diabetes), and a higher infant mortality rate.

Obamacare did fix a few problems with our health care system, but it didn't go nearly far enough. We can only hope that someday our politicians will follow the lead of other developed nations, and truly fix our system by initiating a single-payer system. It's the only thing that will work for everyone.