The White House issued a report on health care this morning that serves as a sobering reminder of the urgent need for reform.
Released online at HealthReform.gov, the report documents the widespread effects of the health care crisis across the United States. It addresses three main areas of concern:
1. The rising cost of care.
The data show that, without significant changes to the health care system, Americans won't stand a chance at keeping up with rising costs. In the last 9 years alone, insurance premiums have doubled, while wages have only increased at a fraction of that rate.
High costs aren't just hitting patients, though. American businesses - large and small - are losing their competitive edge as they try to maintain decent health benefits for their employees. GM, for example, now spends more money on health care costs than they do on steel to make cars.
Health care spending is straining the balance sheets for federal and state governments as well. If we keep doing things the way we are now, health care costs are projected to be 25% of the GDP by 2025. Already, the United States spends approximately $2.2 trillion on health care - about 16.2% of the GDP.
You can see individual drill downs on key states in the Cost of Doing Nothing reports we released on SEIU.org last month.
2. Lack of access to care.
These numbers are particularly scary. It's clear that no matter who you are, where you live, or what your job is, you're at risk of being hit by the health care crisis. In the last two years alone, more than 86 million Americans went uninsured at some point; and even those with insurance couldn't always get the care they needed.
Just having a job isn't a guarantee that you have health care anymore - not by a long shot. In fact, more than 80% of uninsured Americans are members of working families. The cost that's had on workplace productivity alone is estimated to be as high as $135 billion every year.
And, in the eyes of the health care system, not all people are created equal. Lack of access to care is especially problematic for women and communities of color. That's why SEIU was proud to join in the launch of the Health Equality Project last week.
3. Lack of quality care.
Despite the fact that we pay so much for it, the quality of health care in America is among the worst in the developed world. Based on 37 performance indicators, the U.S. earned a final grade of "D" for the quality of our health care.
That's having a very real effect on patients. Nearly 98,000 Americans die from medical errors every year. That's more than double the number of Americans who die from car accidents, breast cancer, or AIDS.
We have the best nurses, doctors, and health care professionals in the world, but they're stuck in a broken system that leaves them with too many patients and too few resources. The result is thousands of patients falling through the cracks every year.
Right now, America's health care system is defined by high costs, poor access, and low quality. We're better than this. But if we don't act quickly, we'll be here again one year from now with new charts and new numbers - all showing the problem has gotten even worse. Tell Congress we can't afford to wait any longer; tell them to take the first steps toward fixing our broken health care system.
