The News Review:
- Health care needs entrepreneurial reforms
- Beijing Reports First Child Virus Death
- Keeping people out of hospital ‘a great idea’
Health care needs entrepreneurial reforms
Rocky Mountain News – May 14, 2008
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It is less than profound to say that rising health care costs are restricting access for the working poor and squeezing all of us. Cost shifting, payroll and income taxes to pay for entitlements, rising copays and deductibles all combine to make us realize we have hit the wall on this matter. That 80 million baby-boomers are racing down the water-pipe towards retirement, with unfunded liabilities estimated in the trilllions is enough to double our dose of Prozac. The strategy used by government since 1965, when Medicare was first enacted, has been to increase access to health care through tax and spend subsidies in incremental doses that the American public would tolerate. First, it was the elderly, then Medicaid for the poor and then large corporation workers with ERISA. The last remaining segment has been the uninsured. Step-by-step, as these programs were put into place, the costs of health care exploded and we now have about 16% of the population under-insured, yet health care consumes 16% of our GNP, more than any other nation… Health care services, using genetics and computers as the underlying technologies promise to be the cornerstone in our 21st century economy. Whether the United States will be the leader is yet to be seen, because most European economies also have their sights set on this target. Health care is like having a grossly obese child. You know that the child’s success in life depends on junior losing weight. But, do you admit failure and submit the child to gastric bypass surgery? In the end, isn’t it eating less food that causes the weight loss? Or do you try some other approach? What will work? Less fat in the diet; a high protein diet; more fiber? There are lots of ideas, but they all get back to consuming fewer calories and getting more exercise. So it is with health care. We have indulged our health care youngster mightily with subsidies and tax privileges and he has grown into a strapping big lad.
Beijing Reports First Child Virus Death
ABC News – May 14, 2008
The child died Sunday on the way to a hospital, the state-run Xinhua News Agency said, citing Beijing Health Bureau spokeswoman Deng Xiaohong. The director of the health bureau’s publicity office, contacted by telephone, declined to comment on the death. The health bureau also told Xinhua that another child died of the illness in Beijing, but the death was counted in the victim’s home province of Hebei, which neighbors Beijing. A 21-month-old boy also died of the virus Monday in Hubei province, Xinhua reported. The three newly reported deaths raise the countrywide death toll to 42 since late March. Hand, foot and mouth disease has sickened more than 24,934 children in seven Chinese provinces plus Beijing, Xinhua reported. It said 3,606 hand, foot and mouth infections had been reported in Beijing as of Monday.
Keeping people out of hospital ‘a great idea’
The Australian – May 14, 2008
Hospitals are just not great places for people to be around," Ms Quadrio said. The Rudd Government agrees. It has championed the preventive health agenda, to the point where child health check-ups, higher taxes on alcohol, and bans on liquorice-flavoured cigarettes have distracted from the concerns of hospital funding. In yesterday’s budget, the federal Government added flesh to the bones of its strategy, delivering on its election promises, while pledging a fresh $15million for a campaign to combat tobacco. Ms Quadrio said the Rudd Government’s funding support for breastfeeding, honouring an earlier pledge, had won her support. "It’s a start, anyway, though it probably won’t last long over five years," she said. But she was disappointed by other measures, such as the means-testing of the baby bonus.
