Slashdot Mirror
Almost 100 Million People a Year 'Forced To Choose Between Food and Healthcare' (theguardian.com)
Almost 100 million people are pushed into extreme poverty each year because of debts accrued through healthcare expenses. From a report: A report, published by the World Health Organization and the World Bank this week, found the poorest and most vulnerable people are routinely forced to choose between healthcare and other necessities for their household, including food and education, subsisting on $1.90 a day. Researchers found that more than 122 million people around the world are forced to live on $3.10 a day, the benchmark for "moderate poverty," due to healthcare expenditure. Since 2000, this number has increased by 1.5% a year. A total of 800 million people spend more than 10% of their household budgets on "out-of-pocket" health expenses, defined as costs not covered by insurance. Almost 180 million people spend a quarter or more, a population increasing at a rate of almost 5% per year, with women among those worst affected.
And when they “choose” they buy cellphones, ultra large screen TVs and the latest video game system.
I’ve seen it personally.
Like food stamps in the US if you force them to eat healthy they MIGHT buy more likely they’ll trade their food stamps for the goods they want.
The solution is to let doctors actually PRACTICE medicine and not bind them up with endless bureaucracy forcing them into managed hospital systems with even more red tape and costs and regulations about how many people they need to see to be “productive”