The Healing of America Quotes

“The Universal Laws of Health Care Systems:

1. "No matter how good the health care in a particular country, people will complain about it"
2. "No matter how much money is spent on health care, the doctors and hospitas will argue that it is not enough"
3. "The last reform always failed”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“A lot of what we "know" about other nations' approach to health care is simply myth.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“For the mass prevention of disease, mass education is a key weapon.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Von Köckritz’s entire higher education was free. She considers that perfectly normal—and in Europe, it is.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“When Americans fill a prescription, the price is routinely twice as much—sometimes ten times as much—as a Briton or a German would pay for precisely the same pills made in the same factory.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“One reason (though not the main one) is that American health care “providers”—doctors, nurses, hospitals, drug companies—make more money for what they do than their counterparts overseas do.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Believe me," Dr. Tamalet summed up, "if you wanted that operation in France, you could get it"

Which is, of course, the boon and the bane of France's health care system. It offers a maximum of free choice among skillful doctors and well-equipped hospitals, with little or not waiting, at bargain-basement prices [in out-of-pocket terms to the consumer]. It's a system that enables the French to live longer and healthier lives, with zero risk of financial loss due to illness. But somebody has to pay for all that high-quality, ready-when-you-need-it care--and the patients, so far, have not been willing to do so. As a result, the major health insurance funds are all operating at a deficit, and the costs of the health care system are increasing significantly faster than the economy as a whole. That's why the doctors keep striking and the sickness funds keep negotiating and the government keeps going back to the drawing board, with a new 'major health care reform' every few years. So far, the saving grace for France's system has been the high level of efficiency, as exemplified by the 'carte vitale,' that keeps administrative costs low--much lower than in the United States.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“private insurance and away from Medicare. The result would be “two-tier medicine,” a term that is as pejorative in Canada as “socialized medicine” is in the United States. Many fear that if Canada did move to two-tier medicine, the rich might get better care, with less waiting, than the poor. The rich getting better access to health care—that’s a fact of life that we take for granted in the United States. But in Canada, such a result would violate the powerful egalitarian impulse that is a crucial element of the national culture.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Economic growth is not the sole aim of our society,” the Hall Report said. “The value of a human life must be decided without regard to . . . economic considerations. We must take into account the human and spiritual aspects involved.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Because the NHS budget covers everybody, the money saved on one patient can be used to treat another. Declining to operate on a sick grandmother means there is more money available to treat sick children. Accordingly, protests about denied coverage tend to be muted. In the U.S. system, that trade-off doesn’t apply; if an American insurance company refuses to pay $36,000 for Herceptin for one of its clients, the money saved is likely used to enhance profits.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“In America, drug companies and medical device makers argue that they have to charge high prices to fund their research and development. But Japanese experience shows that tough cost controls tend to drive innovation, not stifle it.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“According to their filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, most for-profit insurance companies maintain a medical loss ratio of about 80 percent, which is to say that 20 cents of every dollar people pay in premiums for health insurance doesn’t buy any health care.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Some are rich and some are poor. Some are beautiful, some aren’t. Some are brilliant, some aren’t. But when we get sick—then, everybody is equal. Everybody must have equal right to the best medical treatment we can provide.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Would ancient Tibetan medicine recognize the value of X-rays? “Absolutely!” the doctor said. “When patients bring me their X-rays from the clinic up at Khunde, this is extremely helpful in my treatment.” On the other hand, Dr. Tenzin was mystified by other diagnostic practices in Western medicine. “When they do urinalysis up at Khunde, all they do is stick a slip of paper into the sample,” he said. “But that can’t be enough. I just don’t think it is possible to diagnose a medical problem and propose a course of treatment without tasting the urine. Certainly I wouldn’t begin a diagnosis of your shoulder until I had tasted your urine. It tells so much about a patient’s health status.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“It’s one of the finest highway networks in the world—and nobody seems to care that the basic idea was copied from the Nazis.6     EISENHOWER,”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“But Nikki White was a citizen of the world’s richest country, the United States of America.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“When I was traveling the world on my quest, I asked the health ministry of each country how many citizens had declared bankruptcy in the past year because of medical bills. Generally, the officials responded to this question with a look of astonishment, as if I had asked how many flying saucers from Mars landed in the ministry’s parking lot last week. How many people go bankrupt because of medical bills? In Britain, zero. In France, zero. In Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, Switzerland: zero. In the United States, according to a joint study by Harvard Law School and Harvard Medical School, the annual figure is around 700,000.3 QUALITY”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“[Beveridge] was a driven man, right to the end; his last words, enunciated clearly from his death bed at the age of eighty-four, showed that the aging social reformer was still haunted by the memory of those sick men on the East London streets. 'I have a thousand things to do,' he said, and died.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“But out of twenty-three wealthy countries, the American health care system ranks dead last when it comes to keeping newborns alive.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“The shortcomings of our system can be grouped into three basic problems: coverage, quality, and cost.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“We’ve wasted our shining medical assets because of a health care payment system—or, more precisely, a crazy quilt of several overlapping and often conflicting systems—that prevents millions from receiving the treatment they need and that undermines the quality of care for millions more.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Switzerland, and the Netherlands, any resident can choose any insurance plan on the market—and change to a new plan on short notice. That’s a wider choice of health insurance than any American has.”
― T.R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care

“Japan has the oldest population in the world, and the Japanese go to the doctor more than anybody—about fourteen office visits per year, compared with five for the average American. And yet Japan spends about $3,400 per person on health care each year; we burn through $7,400 per person.”
― T. R. Reid, The Healing of America: A Global Quest for Better, Cheaper, and Fairer Health Care