New report: U.S. healthcare sucks and is expensive.

Getting older in America and I guess you could say I’m one of the lucky ones.

When I said to one of my doctors (At my age I don’t just have one. I have a team.) that I’m old, she corrected me and said the medical profession doesn’t consider us “old” until we are in our eighth or ninth decade. I’m only in number seven.

I consider myself lucky because I have a good teacher pension and, challenged by a host of health issues, I have pretty good health insurance.

Most working Americans have neither.

Why do we have to be rich or lucky to have good healthcare in this country?

The U.S. ranks as the worst performer among 10 developed nations in critical areas of health care, including preventing deaths, access (mainly because of high cost) and guaranteeing quality treatment for everyone, regardless of gender, income or geographic location, according to the report, published Thursday by The Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.  

In the U.S. we die the youngest and experience the most avoidable deaths, even though the country spends nearly twice as much — about 18% of gross domestic product — on health care than any of the other ten industrial nations that were ranked in the survey,

And that is WITH the Affordable Care Act.

Healthcare is still not affordable and the care sucks.

“No other country in the world expects patients and families to pay as much out of pocket for essential health care as they do in the U.S.,” Dr. Joseph Betancourt, the president of The Commonwealth Fund, which issued the report, said.

“We have so many different insurers, each of which is selling a different product with different requirements in order for physicians or hospitals and other providers to get paid and for the patients to have their care covered,” Dr. David Blumenthal, the former president of The Commonwealth Fund said. “That leads to denial of service. It leads to bargaining that goes on between doctors and hospitals and insurers’ companies.”

Dr. Adam Gaffney, a critical care physician at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Massachusetts, pointed out that the U.S. differs from the other countries in one critical area: universal health care coverage.

"A universal health care system can make a difference,” Gaffney said, “not only because everyone is covered and can see a doctor when they need to, but because they have a long-standing health care provider who can provide counsel and advice and treatment and prevention of common conditions.”

Have you heard Harris or Trump speaking to this issue?

Me neither.