Congress Still Needs To Fix Our Broken Health Care System

The facts in the images above are from a new study of hospitals by Johns Hopkins University. It paints a portrait of a medical care system that is badly broken. 

We already knew that millions of Americans have no health insurance, and that prevents them from getting needed preventative care -- killing about 17,000 each year.

Now we learn that 64% have avoided or delayed getting medical care out of fear of the cost. And that fear is well-founded. Some hospitals charge patients 10 times the cost of their care, and 57 of the 100 biggest hospitals charge at least 5 times the cost.

We also learn that 58% of all debt collections in this country are because of medical debt, and thousands must declare bankruptcy each year because of it. And sadly, many of these are people who thought they had good insurance, but because of high deductibles and other uncovered expenses find themselves with huge hospital bills.

This doesn't happen in any other developed nation. It only happens in the United States, where politicians love to claim we have the best medical care in the world. The quality of care may well be excellent, but that is of no importance to the people who cannot afford care (or even health insurance).

The truth is that our heal care system is the shame of the developed world. It is broken, and needs to be fixed.

The obvious answer would be a Medicare for All system that covers all citizens and controls costs. A partial, but significant, solution would be a public option for health insurance. Sadly, neither is likely to happen as long as Senate Republicans have the filibuster. They still consider health care to be a product to be sold to those consumers who can afford it -- not a right of every citizen.