Date: 2025-05-14 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00028134
HEALTH
MAKING AMERICAN HEALTHCARE BETTER
TVM: There is a serious disconnect. On the one hand health technology is amasing, but health economics are wrong and social impact awful!
MAKING AMERICAN HEALTHCARE BETTER
TVM: There is a serious disconnect. On the one hand health technology is amasing, but health economics are wrong and social impact awful!
Original article:
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
Peter Burgess
Commentary by Peter Burgess
I grew up in the UK ... born in 1940 at the start of World War II. I became the beneficiary of 'socialized medicine' in the UK when the British National Health Service was established son after the end of WWII. The establishment of the NHS was a major accomplishment of the Atlee Labor Government.
Americans have referred to the UK's National Health Service as 'socialized medicine' as a 'put down' ever since it was established.
But quite rapidly systems similar to the UK's NHS became the norm in almost all the advanced economies around the world ... with the exception of the United States.
These 'socialized' health systems have enabled massive improvements in the overall health of the population and substantial increase in longevity. The health profile of the American population is one of the poorest among rich countries.
The science of health in the United States is impressive ... but its availability to the population at large is quite limited
The 'system' of health service delivery in the United States is a nightmare for those who need medical interventions.
It is not at all clear that there is any reasonable logic that links cost and price and value in health care interventions. Rather it seems that there are a multitude of avenues to extract profit from the system to the benefit os some individual actor or group.
The role of the Sackler family in doing massive damage to patients is a case in point. I migrated from the UK to North America in 1967 and increased my salary by a factor of 5 but not so much my quality of life! Fast forward almost 60 years, and I am still in the USA and both disgusted and disappointed that the USA has elected Trump for a second time! Global health technology is brilliant but the US health system a social disaster ... and nobody has had the guts yet to take on the US health care exploitation that denies most all healthcare if it is not profitable for the systems in control!. The US can do better ... a lot better! https://robertreich.substack.com/p/welcome-to-my-newsletter/comment/2980548 Peter Burgess ... TrueValueMetrics.org