A third of Americans say they have gone without medical care or skipped filling a prescription because of cost, compared with 5 percent in the Netherlands, according to study released yesterday.
The study is the latest in a series by the non-profit Commonwealth Fund showing that while Americans pay far more per capita for healthcare, they are unhappier with the results and less healthy than people in other rich countries.
The study published in the journal Health Affairs also showed that 20 percent of US adults had major problems paying medical bills, compared with 2 percent in Britain and 9 percent in France, the next costliest country.
“US adults were the most likely to incur high medical expenses, even when insured, and to spend time on insurance paperwork and disputes, or to have payments denied,” the report reads.
The Commonwealth Fund, which advocates US healthcare reform, commissioned a Harris Interactive poll of almost 20,000 people in 11 countries between March and June.
“What we are hearing directly from adults around the world, and what we hear regularly at home, is that there is substantial room for improvement in the US health insurance system,” Commonwealth Fund president Karen Davis said.
Healthcare reform was US President Barack Obama’s signature policy effort, but not a single Republican voted for the bill that Obama signed into law this year and conservatives in Congress have promised to try to dismantle it.
The new law is meant to address some of the weaknesses in the US system by forcing more Americans to buy health insurance, expanding public insurance and preventing insurers from dropping coverage.
About 60 percent of Americans under 65 get health insurance through an employer — about 157 million adults. About 45 million people 65 and older have coverage through the nation’s Medicare program for the elderly and disabled.
The system leaves 47 million without any health insurance and last week the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 59 million Americans had no insurance for at least some of the beginning of this year.
The 10 other countries in the survey — Australia, the UK, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland — all provide a mix of public and private insurance.
Adults in the UK, Switzerland, New Zealand and the Netherlands were the most likely to be able to get to a doctor the same day or next day when they needed to, the survey found.
More than 90 percent of Swiss adults said they could see a doctor that fast, compared with 57 percent of adults in Sweden and the US, and fewer than half in Canada and Norway. Only 70 percent of adults in the US or Norway said they were confident they would get the most effective treatment if ill, compared with 90 percent in the UK and 89 percent in Switzerland.
“The United States is the only country in which one-fifth of adults reported serious problems paying healthcare bills,” the study says.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese