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Aug. 10, 2000
The United States spends more money on health care than any other country in the world, but distributes the benefits exceptionally unevenly, according to a report released today in Washington.
Charles Sherrill reports from our Washington Bureau.
Consumers Union spent six months analyzing the healthcare system and found that 44- million Americans have no health insurance.
It says that virtually guarantees they'll get second-class care.
An uninsured Iowa woman who suffered a stroke was said to be typical. Instead of expensive tests and treatment, she was given aspirin.
Trudy Lieberman of The Consumers Union says, "There are those people who have insurance who can afford to pay for care. And that means the latest medicines and state of the art technology that's going to help them live longer. And those people at the bottom tier cannot afford these and don't have insurance companies helping them along the way."
The study says the sickest 10 percent of the population pays an average $22,500 per person per year in health care costs.
It says those people pay 68 percent of the nation's total outlay for health care.
Gail Shearer of the Consumers Union noted, "The World Health Organization recently rated the United States number 54 out of 191 countries on the dimension of fairness of paying for our health care system."
By shunning risks, the study says insurance companies maximize profits but leave the ill out in the cold and unable to afford the premiums based on their health alone.
The study says drug costs for the sickest 10 percent of elderly average almost $5,000 a year. And it finds specialized care tightly rationed for the uninsured who can't pay their own way.
Trudy Lieberman, also with Consumers Union, says, "Even though we don't like to acknowledge the dreaded "R" word, and our politicians flee from it like the plague, this rationing is occurring and it's occurring all the time."
Despite receiving much less service, the study says those who earn the least spend the highest percentage of their income on health care.
That leads Shearer to ask, "How many trillions of dollars does the federal budget surplus have to be before Congress will do something?"
The researchers say the widening disparity in health care should be a central issue in this year's Presidential election.
If the current trend continues they say there'll be 47- million Americans with no health insurance coverage by 2005.
The Consumers Union found that middle income Americans without insurance often have the hardest time getting good health care. They earn too much to qualify for government assistance but too little to pay for it themselves.
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