U.S. Health System Addressed in Editorial, Opinion Piece
Newspapers recently published an editorial and opinion piece on U.S. health care reform. Summaries appear below.
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Investor's Business Daily: "Just because spending on health care is going up at a fast pace in the U.S. isn't necessarily a sign that something is wrong," an Investor's Business Daily editorial states. "More likely it is a sign that we are a wealthy nation that, by and large, has taken care of the essentials of life," the editorial continues, adding, "As a result, we can afford to spend a bigger chunk of each extra dollar we make on former luxuries, like better vacations, a new laptop and gold-plated health care." The editorial concludes, "[T]he next time a health care reformer comes knocking at your door, telling you that we spend too much on health and that the government should fix the problem, feel free to say you don't believe a word of it" (Investor's Business Daily, 1/25).
- Brad Rodu/Philip Cole, Washington Post: A 2006 report by the National Center for Health Statistics found "that Americans experienced an extraordinary decline in mortality, and an increase in life expectancy, between 2003 and 2004 (the latest year for which figures are available)," Rodu, a professor at the University of Louisville School of Medicine, and Cole, professor emeritus in the School of Public Health at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, write in a Post opinion piece. NCHS found that the death rate from all causes combined dropped 3.8%, and the life expectancy at birth increased by three tenths of a year. Rodu and Cole say they were "surprised, but only by the fact that such good news received so little attention." They conclude that improvement in the U.S. health care system is needed, but "there is irrefutable evidence that our medical and social system, despite its limitations, continues to provide Americans with longer and healthier lives" (Rodu/Cole, Washington Post, 1/26).
