What's wrong with health care
by sunil sharma

The U.S. health care system is in crisis. At stake are the quality of care for millions of Americans and the financial well-being of individuals and employers squeezed by skyrocketing premiums—not to mention the stability of state and federal government budgets.Our health care is staggeringly expensive. We have some of the most skilled physicians in the world, yet one hundred thousand patients die each year from medical errors.

What’s Wrong with Health Care

Americans pay way, way, way more for health care than anyone else
If the health-care system were to break off from the United States and become its own economy, it would be the fifth-largest in the world. The reason that American health care is expensive is all about the price. When we go to the doctor, it costs more than when, say, someone in Canada goes to the doctor. From prescription drugs to imaging scans, nearly everything costs more when it's prescribed in America.

Up to 400,000 people are killed each year due to preventable medical errors.
Preventable medical errors are the third leading cause of death in America, behind heart disease and cancer.

We pay doctors when they provide lots of health care, not when they provide good health care
The American health-care system by and large runs on what experts describe as a "fee-for-service" system. For every service a doctor provides — whether that's a primary care physician conducting an annual physical or an orthopedic surgeon replacing a knee. they typically get a lump sum of money.

80 percent of the healthcare spending goes towards 20 percent of the population
Americans are not equal health care spenders. There's a handful of patients who use lots of medical services and tens of millions of people who barely go to the doctor at all.

One third of healthcare spending isn't helping
The United States spends $800 billion annually (about one third of our overall health care dollars) on things that do not make Americans any healthier.

Absence of Free-market in Healthcare
There is no such thing as a free market in healthcare. From the patient’s lack of any knowledge, the average patient has no idea what anything is going to cost when he enters a hospital and no idea what he is being billed for when he leaves.

sunil sharma
sunil sharma is a blogger, yogi, designer, engineer and humanitarian.