Book eighteen: The Healing of America by T. R. Reid

This should be required reading for every American who has the mentality that nothing in the world can be better than what we have here in the U.S. My goodness, when it comes to health care we are far behind nearly every industrialized nation on the planet. Oh, sure, you can find instances where a few cancer stats here are better than every other place but we're talking about specifics and when you review various health care systems overall and rate factors such as access to care, cost controlling efforts, and quality, we're NEVER in the lead. Reid concludes with one - he calls it the first - question: Is health care a human right?
As Professor Hsaio, a Harvard economist, states,

"If the people believe that medical care is a basic right, you design a system that means anybody who is sick can see a doctor. If a society considers medical care to be an economic commodity, then you set up a system that distributes health care based on the ability to pay."

Many Americans don't believe you can't get care. President Bush assured Americans that people can get health care by visiting the emergency room. In a sense this is true, hospitals cannot turn away true emergencies. They can, however, refuse to provide non-emergency care to patients unable to pay. We should do better than this for the citizens of our country. 18 down, 8 to go.