Hi. My own scan of the ratings below makes a lot of sense to me,,, ...,except in the case of Cuba. I've never been there, but everything I've seen or heard suggests almost a health miracle: Free, exporting doctors all over the world - free or for barter, hi-level micro-biology, and ongoing training thousands of MD's, including US interns. Here's two paragraphs from something I got just this morning:
"Cubans have life expectancy above 77 years and infant mortality at 6.3 per 1,000 live births. These rates, seen as universal markers of a nation's public health service, are comparable to those in America and many European countries. Yet they have been achieved on tiny budgets. The World Health Organisation puts the island's annual health spend at US$251 per person. That is roughly a tenth of the UK's expenditure on health, which runs at nine per cent of GDP." I'll dig around and soon send you a comprehensive article. Ed The World Health Organization's ranking of the world's health systems. Source: WHO World Health Report http://www.photius.com/rankings/who_world_health_ranks.html - See also http://www.photius.com/rankings/world_health_systems.html Spreadsheet Details (731kb) View this list in alphabetic order http://www.photius.com/rankings/healthranks_alpha.html 1 France 2 Italy 3 San Marino 4 Andorra 5 Malta 6 Singapore 7 Spain 8 Oman 9 Austria 10 Japan 11 Norway 12 Portugal 13 Monaco 14 Greece 15 Iceland 16 Luxembourg 17 Netherlands 18 United Kingdom 19 Ireland 20 Switzerland 21 Belgium 22 Colombia 23 Sweden 24 Cyprus 25 Germany 26 Saudi Arabia 27 United Arab Emirates 28 Israel 29 Morocco 30 Canada 31 Finland 32 Australia 33 Chile 34 Denmark 35 Dominica 36 Costa Rica 37 United States of America 38 Slovenia 39 Cuba 40 Brunei 41 New Zealand 42 Bahrain 43 Croatia 44 Qatar 45 Kuwait 46 Barbados 47 Thailand 48 Czech Republic 49 Malaysia 50 Poland 51 Dominican Republic 52 Tunisia 53 Jamaica 54 Venezuela 55 Albania 56 Seychelles 57 Paraguay 58 South Korea 59 Senegal 60 Philippines 61 Mexico 62 Slovakia 63 Egypt 64 Kazakhstan 65 Uruguay 66 Hungary 67 Trinidad and Tobago 68 Saint Lucia 69 Belize 70 Turkey 71 Nicaragua 72 Belarus 73 Lithuania 74 Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 75 Argentina 76 Sri Lanka 77 Estonia 78 Guatemala 79 Ukraine 80 Solomon Islands 81 Algeria 82 Palau 83 Jordan 84 Mauritius 85 Grenada 86 Antigua and Barbuda 87 Libya 88 Bangladesh 89 Macedonia 90 Bosnia-Herzegovina 91 Lebanon 92 Indonesia 93 Iran 94 Bahamas 95 Panama 96 Fiji 97 Benin 98 Nauru 99 Romania 100 Saint Kitts and Nevis 101 Moldova 102 Bulgaria 103 Iraq 104 Armenia 105 Latvia 106 Yugoslavia 107 Cook Islands 108 Syria 109 Azerbaijan 110 Suriname 111 Ecuador 112 India 113 Cape Verde 114 Georgia 115 El Salvador 116 Tonga 117 Uzbekistan 118 Comoros 119 Samoa 120 Yemen 121 Niue 122 Pakistan 123 Micronesia 124 Bhutan 125 Brazil 126 Bolivia 127 Vanuatu 128 Guyana 129 Peru 130 Russia 131 Honduras 132 Burkina Faso 133 Sao Tome and Principe 134 Sudan 135 Ghana 136 Tuvalu 137 Ivory Coast 138 Haiti 139 Gabon 140 Kenya 141 Marshall Islands 142 Kiribati 143 Burundi 144 China 145 Mongolia 146 Gambia 147 Maldives 148 Papua New Guinea 149 Uganda 150 Nepal 151 Kyrgystan 152 Togo 153 Turkmenistan 154 Tajikistan 155 Zimbabwe 156 Tanzania 157 Djibouti 158 Eritrea 159 Madagascar 160 Vietnam 161 Guinea 162 Mauritania 163 Mali 164 Cameroon 165 Laos 166 Congo 167 North Korea 168 Namibia 169 Botswana 170 Niger 171 Equatorial Guinea 172 Rwanda 173 Afghanistan 174 Cambodia 175 South Africa 176 Guinea-Bissau 177 Swaziland 178 Chad 179 Somalia 180 Ethiopia 181 Angola 182 Zambia 183 Lesotho 184 Mozambique 185 Malawi 186 Liberia 187 Nigeria 188 Democratic Republic of the Congo 189 Central African Republic 190 Myanmar Recommended Resources http://www.kpfk.org/ http://www.commondreams.org/ Ara *** http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rose-ann-demoro/#blogger_bio Rose Ann DeMoro Sen. Obama, Please No More Deck Chairs on the Insurance Industry Titanic Posted May 29, 2007 | 10:57 PM (EST) The first misconception in the health care debate is the portrait of all of us as "consumers" of health care. If we are ever going to build a genuinely humane society, we need to discard the notions of consumerism when it comes to the most basic factor of our humanity -- our health. We already have that expectation when it comes to our personal safety with publicly guaranteed police and fire services. But somehow our health, our life, has become a commodity. Sen. Barack Obama's healthcare plan, announced today, is yet the latest to perpetuate the present misguided system that sacrifices all of us to this concept. Mirroring others before him, Obama's plan rests on expanding the girth of the private insurance industry, largely through federal subsidies to help uncovered low and moderate income individuals and families buy insurance. While Obama would not force all individuals to buy insurance, in contrast to the John Edwards plan or Massachusetts-Arnold Schwarzenegger model, he would require all children have to health insurance; presumably the kids themselves will not be paying the premiums. There's yet another gift to the insurers, and to big employers to boot, using public funds to reimburse employers for catastrophic healthcare expenditures. Borrowing from the Massachusetts law, Obama also sets up a National Health Insurance Exchange to guide individuals through the convoluted insurance maze, with the supposed stick that insurers would have to offer "fair and stable premiums" and meet other standards to qualify for participation. It's not working in Massachusetts, and won't work for Obama either. Under Obama's plan -- and all the others before him, of course -- the insurance industry continues to govern our health. No matter how many layers of transparency or sweeteners are piled on top of the system, the insurers are not going to change their intrinsic behavior, any more than you can expect an alligator to stop eating meat by giving it time outs. In his brilliant new documentary Sicko, Michael Moore gets it completely right. The problem is not enough insurance or even making insurance "affordable." It's the insurance industry itself. Until we can pry our health out of the cold, cruel hands of the insurers, the system will never fundamentally change, and millions of Americans will continue to be abandoned and mistreated. Moore explains with heart wrenching profiles of people with insurance who are nonetheless denied the care they need. None of those individuals need more insurance, they need more care. He then deconstructs the insurance based system to show us how it works, and how the industry maintains its power through the buying and selling of Congress. And, Moore contrasts our healthcare debacle with other industrialized countries where enriching the private insurance industry is not the first focus of healthcare policy. Obama could have easily gone down another path. He once suggested that a single-payer model, such as exists in Canada, one of the countries Moore visited which has a genuinely universal system, would be ideal, but then backed away. Obama's speech today was filled with recognition of the plight of those millions who face bankruptcy for high medical bills, and even concludes that "the biggest obstacle in the way of reforming this skewed system of needless waste and spiraling costs are those who profit most from the status quo - the drug and insurance companies." But when Obama notes "it's time to let the drug and insurance industries know that while they'll get a seat at the table, they don't get to buy every chair," he's missed an opportunity, and made the wrong choice. The insurance companies have not just bought the chairs, they've bought the table as well. Or to thoroughly mix the metaphor, we won't cure the sickness by using public money to buy more deck chairs on the insurance industry Titanic. There are only two approaches to healthcare reform. Keep sailing on that insurance Titanic, or enact a humanitarian system that ends the insurers' stranglehold. There is such a proposal. It's John Conyers' HR 676 in Congress, or similar state versions, such as SB 840 in California. They establish a "single-payer" system in which one public entity collects and distributes all the funds and dispenses them for delivery through our current, mostly private hospitals, clinics, doctors, and other providers with guaranteed, comprehensive healthcare for all. ****** Rose Ann DeMoro is executive director of the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee (CNA/NNOC), which has gained international acclaim most recently for igniting the campaign that toppled one of the world's most famous celebrity politicians, Arnold Schwarzenegger, dropping his public approval from 70% to 35% in the polls and administering to him a severe pummeling in a special election last year. CNA/NNOC has been renowned for years as one of the most influential, progressive, and fastest-growing unions and healthcare organizations in the US. ### ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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