In short, today's American health care system falls short of providing high quality care and choices for all Americans. And that's exactly the way it should be. One out of four 63 million Americans will lose their health insurance coverage for some period during the next two years. Becoming ill or living with a chronic medical condition can mean losing insurance coverage or not being able to obtain it. Many elderly and disabled Americans enter nursing homes and other institutions when they would prefer to remain at home.
Families exhaust their savings trying to provide for disabled relatives.
Many serious health problems such as lead poisoning and drug resistant tuberculosis are handled inefficiently or not at all, and thus potentially threaten the health of the entire population. No one is accountable for the performance of the health care system not hospitals, physicians, other providers, or health insurers. Yet, our system waits until people are sick before it starts to work. It is biased towards specialty care and gives inadequate attention to cost effective primary and preventive care. Consumers cannot compare doctors and hospitals because reliable quality information is not available to them.