Hits & Misses – 2009/8/31
The LA Times and the Wall Street Journal Health Blog claim house calls may save money – at least for critically ill seniors.
A new book, Shattered Lives, explores horror stories of socialized medicine.
Wall Street Journal Health Blog: High U.S. rates of violence, traffic accidents, suicides, lower the U.S. life expectancy below other OECD countries.
In late 2008 I wrote about American Physician Housecalls, a Texas-based firm, that saves Medicare money by providing house calls to frail seniors, which reduces hospitalizations.
(p. 14; http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pdfs/st318.pdf
Interesting post on why our life expectancy is lower.
Apparently it is not due to inferior medical care.
No-one has ever said that healythcare in America is inferior. The point is that it doesn’t matter the quality of care if it is not available to be used. Life expectancy HAS been lowered because the quality care is generally out of reach for the majority of Americans.
Conversely, the availablitity of some sort of healthcare,(quality or not), has led directly to HIGHER life expectancies in countries where “socialized” mediciner is available.
Better to have something, even if it isn’t the best in the world, than to have nothing at all.
Does violence contirbute? Certainluy it does but tryingto say that America’s violent crime is worse than that in Mexico or in Afghanistan is ludicrous. The plain and simple truth is that life expectancy is lower Primarily because of the non-availability of quality care that doesn’t destroy the financial health along with the physical health of individuals, families, and small buisness.