'WORLD HEALTH DAY:Profits Soar, Along With U.S. UninsuredAdrianne Appel
BOSTON, Apr 5 (IPS)
The U.S. is said to offer gold-standard health care, but as the most expensive health system in the world, some here say that only people with a pot of gold can get that care. Drug prices, health insurance, doctor visits and hospital stays are too expensive for many people to afford, while insurance and drug company profits continue to climb. The nation is entering a health care crisis, many leaders and experts say. An estimated 46 million people do not have health insurance because they cannot afford it, and the U.S. has one of the poorest health profiles of the developed world. Meanwhile, in 2005, pharmaceutical giant Johnson and Johnson earned profits of 10 billion dollars and Pfizer had profits of eight billion dollars, according to Fortune Magazine. Health care is bankrupting even well-to-do U.S. citizens, especially people who have the misfortune of becoming seriously ill. "The reason our health system is so crazy is we treat health care as a commodity. That really doesn't work. Most countries see it as part of their job to take care of their people," Meizhu Lui, executive director of United for a Fair Economy, told IPS. The U.S. system is mostly privatised, which means that individuals alone or through their employers must buy their health care and health insurance on the open market. The government provides subsidised health care for the elderly and some of the poor and disabled. Prices of many health services have soared in recent years and today individuals and the government spend 2.3 trillion dollars annually to purchase health insurance, doctor visits, medicines, hospital stays and special tests, according to Families USA, a health advocacy group.'
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