Universal Healthcare and the Pandemic. Does it Matter?

February 2, 2023

Feb 02, 2023

Happy Groundhog Day Healthcare Advocates

Every day we advocate for better healthcare for all of us is a good day. Thank you also to all of you advocates who have recently subscribed and to those who have asked for particular topics (use the comment button below). Some of the topics in work are the middlemen benefit managers and rural healthcare. Thank you.

Mission

The Healthcare delivery system in the United States is a patchwork that leaves much to be desired. It is the most expensive system among the top 35 industrial countries and covers far fewer participants delivering lower levels of quality care than many of our peer nations. This blog will provide:

Current problems in healthcare
Actions you can take
References

Current State of Affairs - Universal Healthcare and the Pandemic. Does it Matter?

I received a comment recently from subscriber Dianne, for which I am grateful. She was curious about the relationship between public health and Universal Healthcare. Let’s discuss that today.

There are many metrics used to assess healthcare systems. No one metric is sufficient. One of them is called avoidable mortality. Treatable (or amenable or avoidable) mortality is defined as causes of death that can be mainly avoided through timely and effective health care interventions, including secondary prevention and treatment (i.e. after the onset of diseases, to reduce case-fatality).

Let’s look at a comparison of amenable deaths/100,000 population to make an apples to apples comparison amongst countries. The source is the Commonwealth Fund. The graph below shows data from 2016 (pre-pandemic). Only the US does not have universal healthcare. The dark blue bars are 2016 data and you can see that the US rate of 112 deaths/100,000 is double France’s rate of 60 deaths/100,000 and 30% more than Germany’s 86/100,000. So it seems that Universal Healthcare does save lives. This is due to people having regular and affordable access to primary and preventive care. This catches serious conditions early and makes treatments available.

Back to public health which is a little more complicated. The studies address COVID 19 and Universal Healthcare and have computed that in 2020 alone 212,000 lives in the US would have been saved had a universal healthcare system been in place in the US saving the country $105B in that year alone. If you measure up to March of 2022, 338,594 lives would have been saved.

The studies indicate that the US has a higher prevalence of unmanaged chronic illnesses that predispose to worse health outcomes. Also, since so many people were underinsured and uninsured either by choice or due to job loss from the pandemic they delayed presenting at hospitals because of fear of financial ruin. The studies also point out that there was and is a huge under-vaccination rate in the US and there is a lack of resources in facilities that serve rural populations.

Other factors come into play in countries that have Universal Healthcare include more common recordkeeping (simple coding systems) and readily accessible and interoperable electronic health records that make contact tracing very easy. Taiwan was a recent Universal Healthcare adopter and they were an exemplar during the pandemic in their ability to do contact tracing.

Here are the links for these data: Yale Study, National Academy of Sciences Article.

A Universal Single Payer Healthcare System, like Medicare, could address all of these issues. Everyone covered, cradle to grave, full suites of vaccinations, chronic conditions regularly managed to prevent so many avoidable deaths, a universal electronic database of patient records readily available wherever the patient presents and far lower cost. What are we waiting for?

What You Can Do Today Use RESISTBOT

Use RESISTBOT below to send the email below to President Biden, Vice President Harris, and your Senators and Representatives.

Text SIGN PKSDLD to 50409

We all deserve to have a healthcare system that really works, everyday and in times of crisis. We have the highest amenable death rate amongst our industrialized peer nations, 112 deaths/100,000 people in 2016 - pre-pandemic. That’s more than double France’s (who has Universal Healthcare). According to a Yale University study, more than 338,000 lives were needlessly lost during the pandemic and over a hundred billion dollars wasted in one year only because we do not have a Single Payer Universal Healthcare System.

You have the power to fix this for all Americans and we are counting on you. I want you to pass either Representative Jayapal’s Medicare for All or Senator Sanders bill, pick one and pass it. I want the Executive branch to set up a commission to design the program much the way Oregon and Washington States are doing. Please help us and do this. Thank you.