“The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis, by Jonathan Cohn. A woman in California called Nelene died of breast cancer after her insurance company turned down support for a bone marrow transplant. In a countless series of such episode, a family whose son went into a state of cardiac secondary to coronary heart disease were forced to take him to a hospital 45 miles away on their insurance carrier’s orders. He survived the attacked, but suffered a permanent defect that more emergency treatment might have definitely averted. Furthermore, a day old infant called Bryan Jones whose scenario was trumpeted all over the media at the moment of the incidence died of undetected cardiac defect when the insurance company kicked the family out of the hospital. Early detection of the defect soon after the birth might have spotted out the problem. (Sicko, June 2007)
America’s health system is simply paradoxical in administration. In medical technology and in the scientific understanding of disease, it is simply the best. Since doctors are better paid than anywhere else in the world, the country attracts the best of practitioners. And yet many, if not most, Americans are unable to benefit of the advantages of this. In fact, as The New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has argued, the very proliferation of research and high-tech equipment is part of the reason for the imbalance in coverage between the privileged few and the increasingly underserved masses. “[The system] compensates for higher spending on insiders, in party, by consigning more people to outsider status –robbing Peter of basic care in order to pay for Paul’s state-of-the-art treatment,” Krugman wrote recently. “Thus we have the cruel paradox that medical progress is bad for many Americans’ health.”
The Economy Loss
Having the system run by for-profit insurance companies turns out to be inefficient and expensive as well as humiliating. America disburses “twice as much per capita on health care as France, and almost two and a half times as much as Britain. And yet it falls down in almost every key indicator of public health, starting, perhaps, most shockingly, with infant mortality, which is 36 per cent higher than in Britain”.
McKinsey, a consulting firm estimated the excess costs of managing private insurance spheres – scouting for business, processing claims, and hiring “denial management specialists” to tell people why their ailment is not covered by their policy – at about $98bn a year. This is significantly more than the $80bn McKinsey calculates it would cost to cover every uninsured American citizen. Government could perhaps negotiate bulk procure of drugs, rather than permitting the pharmaceutical industries to bill citizen on exorbitant fee, this would in addition save a huge $66bn.
Astonishingly, serious debate about health issues in the United States since Bill Clinton, with considerable input from his wife Hillary, tried and failed to overhaul the system in 1994. May be as part of change as the 2008 presidential race heats up. The system needs change indeed. Everyone recognizes that over 50 million are uninsured – including almost 12 million children – this is shameful of a developed country.
Breast Cancer Survivors
Among other health problem issues, breast cancer survivors are a major sufferer. These are post operative patients whose risk of drastic death resulting from poor chemotherapy management is even higher than the breast cancer itself after primary treatment. The chemotherapy is poisonous and faced with diverse complications. Side-effects such as bone marrow suppression, reduced platelet count, anemia, and infection are medical complications that prone major medical and psychological worries to breast cancer survivor. It is important we briefly understand the subject of breast cancer.
Treatment and Management Bill
Radiation Therapy: High energy dose external irradiation is projected to suppress growth or kill the cancer cells. This involves the use of radio-machine. The cost is huge. Internal irradiation is also available to serve the same purpose through the injection of irradiating elements.
Chemotherapy: This is also used to suppress or kill the cell. The administration route could be intra-dermal (the skin). Chemotherapy involves implantation into skin, spine, etc. Hormone therapy is another option for same purpose.
About 80% of the cancer is mammographycally detected and surgical mastectomy in early un-metastasized stage is efficient scale of about 99% (the remaining left for unprecedented medical occurrence). Modern treatment is based on a multimodality approach combining surgery with regular chemotherapy and the choice of therapy is based on the present staging of the cancer. The cost of this therapy is huge and unavoidable by the low or middle class citizens.
The Need for Free Health Insurance Service
Under the health insurance provision scheme, the huge cost of managing surviving breast cancer patient is highly expensive. The assistance of government intervention in insuring role is needed. It is saddened to note that the United State has a poor plan for health insurance on a general note. “Over 45 million Americans lack health insurance”. This leaves only few percentage of the population capable enough to manage their own diseased state. Suffice to say that America desires in killing the less privileged citizens whose life span could be helped by mere concern and sense of care. The causes of breast cancer are primarily not self induced. They are victim of societal circumstances, from perhaps the body cell allergic reaction to intake or ingestion of industrial products. Some are genetically predispose from their pedigree. The social stigma is also embattled by these breast cancer survivors. It is thereby regarded as a war against womanhood if the government seizes to arise to the need for insurance owing to the large economically productive prevalence age group involved.
How do we address the college students who have no job security that could assist in prognosis of the cancer? I hereby passionately appeal for consideration.
References
Robb C, Haley WE, Balducci L, Extreman M, Perkins EA, Small BJ, Mortimer J. Impact of breast cancer survivorship on quality of life in older women. Critical Reviews in Oncology and Hematology. 2007 Apr; 62(1):84-91.
http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2808.htm