Overinsured? I don’t know. But what I do know is that in the ol US of A, we spend a good 15% of our GDP on healthcare; an obscene amount. Unfortunately, only a bit over 5% of the dollars we do spend are spent on preventing illness. The rest are spent on treating largely preventable illnesses.

Sounds a bit to me like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Whoops, didn’t spend enough money teaching WHY not to smoke, so now it’s time to pay the piper and treat the hypertension, stroke, CVD or CA that can result. Now that’s smart!

We spend more per capita on health care than ANY other civilized nation; in return for that top dollar, the World Health Organization ranks USA as 37th in those same nations with satisfaction and performance of our system.

Isn’t it time for a transformation of what we have? Nurses are on the forefront and legislators should hear from every RN.

I am a doctor and I thoroughly appreciate having found your blog. In listening to NPR and their interview with Johnathan Oberlander who is a political science professor specializing in health-care politics and policy the take home message I got (and tend to believe)is that:

a)a single-payer system is not likely possible or necessary in the U.S.. Most nations have a system that evolves out of their previous one.

b)Our system is overburdened expenditure-wise NOT by what we are paying of the actual care but for the variable layers of bureaucracy to administer the benefits (ie., the guys at the call center with the clipboards and those who sit with checklists to determine who should be covered)

Thanks for your review. I hope to be back soon to read more of your blog.