Rep. Alan Grayson on the Number of Dead from Lack of Health

Pepe Silvia

Rep. Alan Grayson on the Number of Dead from Lack of Health Care

44,789 americans die every year from lack of health care

pt 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfNVWINLfKs

pt 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5Ig1GfIFvc

phillypjhead

Pepe Silvia wrote:

Rep. Alan Grayson on the Number of Dead from Lack of Health Care

44,789 americans die every year from lack of health care

That's a huge number. We can, and should, do better as a civilized society. But if this is justification for the Pelosi plan, than we have a difference of opinion. As someone who worked for the fed gov't for over a decade, I have what I believe to be a keen insight on how gov't operates, and trust me, giving the gov't control of health care won't make this better.

BTW, before anyone bashes me for saying this, let me state that I am one of the 25+ million Americans with no health insurance, a scary prospect with the swine flu out there.

Let's look at England.

"A recent report published in the Lancet, showed that Britain has one of the worst five-year cancer survival rates in Europe and certainly well behind the best in the study, the United States. England has a female cancer survival rate of only 52.7 per cent, compared with 62.9 per cent for the United States or 61.8 per cent for Iceland. Britain performed poorer than former communist countries such as Slovenia, not to mention Spain and Malta. For males, a similar story is told, with England having a survival rate of only 44.8 per cent compared with the United States at 66.3 per cent. Again, below Spain, Ireland and Italy.
Around the same time another report on strokes appeared in the British Medical Journal that reported that Britain had some of the poorest stroke treatment rates in Europe. "

"Official NHS monthly figures for June showed that 236,316 patients faced a wait of more than 18 weeks between GP referral and admission for hospital treatment."

"A three-year-old girl awaiting heart surgery has had her operation cancelled three times this month because of a shortage of beds.

Ella Cotterell was due to have aorta-widening surgery on Monday at the Children’s Hospital, Bristol. But 48 hours beforehand, the operation was cancelled for the third time as all 15 beds in the intensive care unit were occupied, her parents said.

A hospital spokesman said that procedures would be reviewed, but the case highlights a growing problem of cancelled operations in the NHS.

More than 57,000 surgeries were postponed for non-clinical reasons, including a lack of beds, last year – 10 per cent more than the previous year.

Latest figures show that the problem persists. At least 43,000 operations were cancelled in the first nine months of 2008-09, with nearly 1,800 patients not being treated within 28 days of their original scheduled date.

Among the excuses for cancellation the previous year were a hospital running out of shavers to prepare patients for surgery, a surgeon going missing following a fire alarm, and a patient’s translator failing to turn up. "

I don't pretend to have all the answers, but I know in my heart that what passed the House the other night (with 39 Dems voting against it) is not the right cure for our country.