Speaking of health care/health insurance, I am actually doing a persuasive speech over keeping health care private instead of going universal.
towards your points:
1) Insurance is and will always be a huge dilemma. The costs associated with obtaining and maintaining it is high, but with more and more small-business oriented agencies spawning to fill the gaps, the holes are closing. But, when comparing the costs of health care here, to those of per say Sweden who has had a universal health care programs for decades, are beyond reasonable for the treatment received. We all know the common short falls of universal health care such as long waits for non-essential surgeries and even longer waits for major, but few realize the monetary costs. Sweden garnishes %50 of your wage regardless of your income bracket and then taxes the remaining %50 for costs other than health care. Keeping health care privatized in America has already paved the road to give us the number 1 health care in the world and going universal insurance would be a blunder.
2) Curable diseases/illnesses are another common blunder that could save american's over 5 billion a year in insurance costs. Just a few items such as finishing all your anti-biotics to prevent drug resistance and washing your hands after using the restroom and before eating to prevent the illness itself are the two large steps that have proven to solve this is many case studies.
3) Lack of physicians.... what can I say, well this isn't just a problem in the US but a world issue. Many underdeveloped regions ranging from the rural areas of oklahoma per say all the way to the African tribe lands need physicians and there will never be an immediate solution to this other than training more physicians who have a personal motivation to work in a rural medicine environment. Theres not much else I can think of to do to aid this though.
But in my mind the top three issues of American health care are:
3) Lack of motivations to stay healthy: As mentioned before, if Americans just washed their hands and lived in much more sanitary environments, deaths and costs would drop. I doubt much will happen about this until the common bacterial diseases reach a point where antibiotics are too expensive due to resistance. (-MRSA for example)
2) Lack of education in disease common knowledge: Many people try to self diagnose and treat and therefor take leftover drugs, or refrain from the doctor all in hopes of the "cold" passing on its own. If people in general were more educated on different types of diseases and colds such as bacterial, viral etc and modes of infection, this would be very effective in reducing costs. One parallel case study that can be used to prove this is the reduction of unwanted births and stds through the wide-spread sex education and the further reduction with sex ed not only being about abstaining, but also safe-sex techniques.
and ...
1) Political balderdash:
Everything from the misuse of Social Security funds to the issue of health insurance can be traced to the atrocity of politics. With the lack of action, and the excess of jaw flabbing, nothing is being solved. Political agendas and lack of public accountability has allowed politics to grow to the equivalence of a festering boil and until some one grabs a scalpel and lances it, we as Americans will do nothing more than sit and watch the fireworks as presidential candidates use such issues to manipulate voters into choosing them rather than for the better of the public. I could go on for hours about this rubbish, but i end my current discussion here.
