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I forgot where I got the link from, but if you're interested in the state of health care in America, this article by Philip Longman is fascinating. It's about a radical improvement in quality within the Veterans Health Administration, and why, quoting one professor of public health, "The U.S. medical market as presently constituted simply does not provide a strong business case for quality."
I question a passing remark that it's safe to assume "that Americans are not going to accept the idea of government-run health care any time soon". In a recent poll, more people favored government-run health care than the current system. That number, I suspect, is on its way up. The devil is in the details, though. In other polls, support for government-provided health care is high, but drops if it means less choice, longer waits, etc. Which it probably does.
As for me, a couple months ago I needed to avail myself for the first time of my new health care provider, Kaiser Permanente. They listened to my symptoms over the phone and told me to come in for a test and a drug. I went to the hospital that night, a big blocky building about three miles from my home, went upstairs for the test and downstairs to fill the prescription, and went home feeling, for the first time I can remember, satisfied by a brush with the medical industry. It occurred to me that Kaiser, with its monolithic insurer/doctor/hospital/pharmacy structure, is as close as I've ever been to socialized medicine, and as such probably is balm to my Nordic (well, half-Nordic) soul.
(Weird: A Google search for "VHA" turns up a "nationwide network of community-owned health care systems and their physicians," not the Veterans Health Administration. The VHA in VHA, Inc., officially doesn't stand for anything. Seems like a poorly chosen name, or at least kind of rude.)
I question a passing remark that it's safe to assume "that Americans are not going to accept the idea of government-run health care any time soon". In a recent poll, more people favored government-run health care than the current system. That number, I suspect, is on its way up. The devil is in the details, though. In other polls, support for government-provided health care is high, but drops if it means less choice, longer waits, etc. Which it probably does.
As for me, a couple months ago I needed to avail myself for the first time of my new health care provider, Kaiser Permanente. They listened to my symptoms over the phone and told me to come in for a test and a drug. I went to the hospital that night, a big blocky building about three miles from my home, went upstairs for the test and downstairs to fill the prescription, and went home feeling, for the first time I can remember, satisfied by a brush with the medical industry. It occurred to me that Kaiser, with its monolithic insurer/doctor/hospital/pharmacy structure, is as close as I've ever been to socialized medicine, and as such probably is balm to my Nordic (well, half-Nordic) soul.
(Weird: A Google search for "VHA" turns up a "nationwide network of community-owned health care systems and their physicians," not the Veterans Health Administration. The VHA in VHA, Inc., officially doesn't stand for anything. Seems like a poorly chosen name, or at least kind of rude.)
