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Nurses are Right about the Problem but Wrong about the Solution
Last week, more than 14,000 nurses from Minnesota hospitals staged a 1-day walk-out as a sign of protest over excessive patient loads.
The nurses are right about staffing shortages and overloaded responsibilities.
However, their solution – hiring more nurses will add further costs pressures to America’s unsustainable healthcare bubble.
Without radical change, this bubble promises to burst, adding yet another dimension to America's healthcare crisis.
Most people already know that America spends far more than every other nation on healthcare by every measure, at 18% of GDP, while failing to provide coverage for over 40 million Americans.
In contrast, all developed nations in the world spend anywhere from 6.8% to 10% of GDP (France is the lone exception, with 11% of GDP on healthcare) for a system of healthcare that delivers better standards of care and provides coverage to every citizen, regardless of employment status, income or age.
Despite the overwhelming myths spread by politicians, pundits and many journalists, the quality of U.S. healthcare is mediocre.
In fact, on a per dollar basis, it is the worst healthcare system in (at least) the developed world.
Furthermore, the outrageous costs of healthcare in the U.S. have created a unique consequence, unseen elsewhere in the world; that of medical bankruptcies. According to studies by medical researchers at Harvard, medical bankruptcies now account for about 50% of all personal bankruptcies each year in the U.S., at over 1 million.
It would be natural to assume that virtually all of those who have fallen victim to medical bankruptcy lack health insurance.