Health care web site

I just found a new site called Physicians for a National Health Program. The program is a nonprofit organization of 14,000 physicians, medical students and health professionals who support single-payer national health insurance.

Here's something from an explanation of their Mission Statement:

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 46 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.

This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment though a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

And here's another good quote:

Private health insurance was an idea that worked during part of the last century; it will not succeed through the 21st Century. With jobs increasingly service-based and short-term, the large employment-based risk pools that made this insurance system possible no longer exist. Medical care has become more effective and more essential to the ordinary person, but also more costly and capital-intensive. The multiple private insurance carriers that emerged during the last century can no longer provide a sound basis for financing our modern health care system.

The website is just full of great information on this subject. I really recommend it.

UPDATE: Here's a comment I found after an article dealing with the health care problem. It addresses the prediction that the quality of health care would go down if we went to a universal, single-payer system:

My 2 cents: I'm married, have 2 children and excellent health insurance through my husband's federal job. I had one of my kids in England under the NHS, socialized medicine. My other child was born in the US under our insurance.

The care I got in England was much, much better than the care I got here. We stayed in the hospital an extra day when my son was ill (minor issue) after being born, without having to clear it was anyone. A midwife come to our house to check me and the baby every day for a week after we got home from the hospital. Then every few days for another few weeks. I could walk to my doctor's office and get an appointment almost any time I asked. Prescriptions were about $14 each, no matter what the medicine. When my son had a possibly serious problem I got a referral and appointment right away. There was no paperwork and all the records were computerized.

Here I have to drive 40 minutes to the doctor, and if I don't call 10 minutes after they open their sick appointments are used up. We have tons of paperwork and copays etc. My husband's coworker with the same insurance has a seriously ill child. He is struggling to afford care for her, despite having really good insurance. Dealing with the paperwork and denied claims and all the garbage is almost a full time job for his wife.

Health care is going to be my #1 priority deciding who to vote for next election.

I agree with this person. When I lived in Ireland I did not hear one complaint about the nationalized health care system.