0 Trumps 700,000

I'm reading T. R. Reid's book The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper and Fairer Health Care. He writes about the world's major health systems, and notes that every major developed country, except the United States, ensures that all of its citizens have access to medical services. They do it in a variety of effective ways, but they all do it. America is exceptional for its failure to do so.

And, because other developed countries do ensure everyone has access to healthcare, they do it for far less cost per capita, than the United States. This is true, even though many of these countries, have far larger percentages of their population in the 65 and older and 80 and older age groups, than does the United States. Older people use much more medical care than do those under age 65.

Country	% 2000 Population 65+	% 2000 Population 80+
France	15.9%	3.8%
Germany	16.4%	3.6%
Japan	17.1%	3.7%
United Kingdom (Britain)	16.0%	4.2%
United States	12.5%	3.3%

In his travels around the world to learn about the major health systems, he asked the health ministry of each country how many citizens had declared bankruptcy in the past year because of medical bills. "Generally," he writes, "the officials responded to this question with a look of astonishment, as if I had asked how many flying saucers from Mars landed in the ministry's parking lot last week.

"How many people go bankrupt because of medical bills? In Britain, zero. In France, zero. In Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and Switzerland: zero. In the United States, according to a joint study by Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, the annual figure is around 700,000," even though we've modified bankruptcy law to make filing more difficult. We've reformed bankruptcy law to provide additional protection for creditors. It's now time to reform healthcare to provide protection for all Americans.

The U. S. population totals about 307 million people. The population of Britain, France, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada and Switzerland totals more than 392 million.

The purpose of health insurance is to protect us from the financial catastrophe resulting from illness or injury. The rest of the industrial world has developed far more effective answers than we have in the United States. The score is World - 0, United States - 700,000. And with a score like that, it's the United States that is losing.