Why are we not up in arms about the cost of health care in America?

About Time Magazine’s “Bitter Pill”

To read Bitter Pill, click here.

The story opens with an all too common tale of life in America. We have the right to pursue life liberty and happiness, but not at a price the rest of the world might enjoy, at least not when it comes to health care.

Take Sean Recchi.

Diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 42. Total cost, in advance, for Sean’s treatment plan and initial doses of chemotherapy: $83,900. Charges for blood and lab tests amounted to more than $15,000; with Medicare, they would have cost a few hundred dollars.

Why are we not up in arms about the cost of health care in America? It approaches 20% of our GDP. We pay more than anyone, ANYONE else in the world pays. And we are not even covering everyone. Nor is the care top quality. In fact we are nowhere near the top as quality of care goes. Our ranking? Paying the most? 37th. We rank 37th in quality of care.

When we debate health care policy, we seem to jump right to the issue of who should pay the bills, blowing past what should be the first question: Why exactly are the bills so high?

What are the reasons, good or bad, that cancer means a half-million- or million-dollar tab? Why should a trip to the emergency room for chest pains that turn out to be indigestion bring a bill that can exceed the cost of a semester of college? What makes a single dose of even the most wonderful wonder drug cost thousands of dollars? Why does simple lab work done during a few days in a hospital cost more than a car?

Read this article, "Bitter Pill". I implore you. It is long, but it is important for all of us to understand that health care in America is extortion. Nothing more than government sanctioned extortion.