Post 4 - Health Care

Article of the day

I like The Week, it’s a news magazine and website that was started in Great Britain. There is now an American version. The magazine does a great job of keeping the reader updated with current events locally and around the world. For issues like health care, they do a good job showing both sides of the argument. I have enjoyed following The Week throughout the whole health care process. Check it out…

http://theweek.com/article/briefing_blog/28/health-care-reform

Nonprofit Nation – Health Care

Chapter five of the textbook discusses the health care system in the United States. I have always known that this sector is big, but it wasn’t until the last few years that I realized how important this sector is in supplying jobs and meeting the needs of every citizen in the country. The book discusses that the health care sector has been at the center of many controversies. We have seen this in the last few years, especially with the new health care bill that has been thrown back and forth in the government. The text states on page 91, “During the last half of the twentieth century, as the rapid growing health industry became more bureaucratic and less visibly charitable and as government looked for more sources of tax revenue, some argue that nonprofit hospitals were for profit in disguise.” This is a very fascinating point. In many peoples eyes hospitals are there for you no matter what, but what this quote states is that hospitals are more after your money than helping you. Our country is in desperate need of rebuilding the health care system. If it is truly going to be nonprofit then it needs to truly be nonprofit, if it is for profit then people need to know that.

The book discusses the sheer size of the health care system; it is truly one of the foundations of our country. If it fails, then the United States will be in deep trouble. The health care system comprises of 13.2 percent of the total GDP as of 2000. This book was written in 2002 and it states that 44 million Americans still lack health insurance. It is now 2011 and that number has definitely increased as costs have gone up. As ‘democratic’ as our country is, the politicians need to step up and stop worrying about their re-election campaigns. We are in crisis mode and change needs to happen.

Very interesting chapter of the book, it will be interesting to see what next steps are made in the future to boost the health care system.

Green Bay Packers

I do not know much about American football, one thing I do know is, it is not just absurd, but out of this world how much money is spent on pro football. I had no idea that the Green Bay packers were publicly owned by thousands of citizens. I think this is brilliant. I am sick of hearing stories of billionaire owners with the hottest heads around making decisions that make the fans pretty ticked off. It is great to see a team that people are truly passionate about have a say in the decisions. Very interesting article would never have thought that an NFL team would be an official non-profit.

The Value of Nonprofit Health Care

This was a very interesting article on how nonprofit hospitals and clinics can build communities stronger. There were a list of pros of having nonprofit health care; it was interesting to read that nonprofit health care will truly provide the best possible health care. A great part of the article stated, “The top-rated health plans for quality and member satisfaction have been predominately nonprofit. In addition, nonprofit health plans typically have higher medical loss ratios, meaning that more of the premium dollar is spent on actual health care services rather than on administrative costs and profits.” The last part of that quote is what really stuck out to me, that more of the dollar would actually be spent on health care. This is one of the major problems with our current system. Health care is so expensive because administrative costs are so high, if those costs are brought down by truly having nonprofit health care, then this will really help the situation. This was a great article.

Wow…I’m already out of space.

I also read the Merging in Michigan and Disease Mongering articles. The Michigan article was about a hospital system that had served thousands of poor people was at the verge of being sold to a for profit hospital.

 It was very interesting to read how ADD affects millions of people in the US and the world. A quick quote from the story:

"If you want to stir up worry in the public, and you've got the advertising dollars to do it, you can turn almost anything into a disease," says Dr. Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania

I think this is very true of our society; we get scared of things to easily and do not allow our bodies to grow to fight some diseases.

Cheers.