America’s deeply flawed health care delivery system ranks near or at the bottom when objectively compared to peers in Britain, France, Canada and Australia. Extraordinarily high per capita cost, the inaccessibility of affordable preventive care and other chronic maladies make the case for big changes here, even after Obamacare has ushered in some modest improvements.
America’s deeply flawed health care delivery system ranks near or at the bottom when objectively compared to peers in Britain, France, Canada and Australia. Extraordinarily high per capita cost, the inaccessibility of affordable preventive care and other chronic maladies make the case for big changes here, even after Obamacare has ushered in some modest improvements.
But champions of universal health care elsewhere must admit one area in which America’s health system still shines: scientific innovation. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that the United States’ vast investment in developing and manufacturing lifesaving COVID-19 vaccines is a big part of the reason why a country that floundered in its early COVID-19 response has leapfrogged most other developed countries. After a shaky start, we’ve vaccinated 23.7% of our adult population, while France, Sweden and Canada, to name just a few, have managed to vaccinate just 6.8%, 6.4% and 2.5%, respectively.
When COVID-19 struck, many problems in America’s health care delivery system were laid bare, as long-standing disparities in access to care and the nationwide prevalence of preexisting conditions like heart disease and diabetes helped contribute to the needless deaths of thousands.
What the U.S. did right, though, was send billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies to speed along development and manufacture of vaccines — much of which could happen right here, thanks to a robust domestic medical production capacity that the nation pointedly lacks in other realms.
That’s a stark contrast to Canada and European countries, which had to rely largely on foreign vaccine manufacturers for their supply and which got bogged down thanks to top-down bureaucratic bungling. Adding a stroke of bad luck to strategic shortfalls, they relied on the AstraZeneca vaccine, the rollout of which was slowed after reports of blood clots surfaced.
And fairminded U.S. politicians should acknowledge another reason vaccines have sped along so quickly here: The feds mandated free shots for all. Almost nothing else in the U.S. health care system works that way, but much more should.
— New York Daily News
