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Thursday, March 28, 2024
March 28, 2024

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Letter: Time to improve U.S. health care

By Peter Harrison, Vancouver
Published: March 16, 2017, 6:00am

Americans pay 50 percent more per person on health care than any other country in the world, yet our health outcomes are not even in the top 10 or 20. We fall somewhere in the 30s in terms of outcomes. That means we are wasting $1 trillion, $3,000 per person, per year, every year for substandard health care. That makes me angry. That is money we could spend on infrastructure, schools, or vacationing in top-ten countries where health care is both cheaper and better.

You should be angry, too, because Congress is not working to fix the problem. Instead of working to bring the cost of generic and name-brand drugs down or reforming regulations that force our health care system to generate unnecessary paperwork and hire more administrators than caregivers, they are busy trying to reform health insurance.

That’s right. Congress is pretending changing who pays the bills will lower costs.

Other countries have systems that deliver quality health care for less, so it can be done. What we need is a Congress willing to set politics aside and put their constituents first. Because we want our money’s worth, and we want it now.

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