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Free Market Fundamentalism Is Killing Us

Barbara O'Brien: Our private, profit-based health care system is grand at creating and marketing innovative health care products. But at delivering some essential medical services, it's poor and getting worse.
May 12, 2007  |  
 
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By many tangible measures, the U.S. health care system isn't much to brag about. For example, the World Health Organization reported that in 2000 the U.S. ranked 24th in the world in "healthy life expectancy."

"Basically, you die earlier and spend more time disabled if you’re an American rather than a member of most other advanced countries," said Christopher Murray (M.D., Ph.D.), Director of WHO's Global Programme on Evidence for Health Policy.

In life expectancy, infant mortality, and number of practicing physicians per capita, the U.S. long has ranked near the bottom among the 30 or so wealthiest industrialized nations. And this is in spite of the fact that we spend nearly twice as much per capita on health care as nations that get much better results than we do. We don't even have as many hospital beds per capita as most other industrialized nations.

But worry no more, children. I learned yesterday that "US Health Care Saves More Lives Than Socialized Medicine"! Keep reading to learn more!

Barbara O'Brien has guest blogged at the Take Back America Conference, Glenn Greenwald's, Unclaimed Territory, and Crooks and Liars. She is the "owner/proprietor" of The Mahablog.

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