Friday, November 22, 2013

50 U.S. Health Care Statistics That Will Absolutely Astonish You


http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/50-u-s-health-care-statistics-that-will-absolutely-astonish-you


50 U.S. Health Care Statistics That Will Absolutely Astonish You

The U.S. health care system has become one gigantic money making scam, and you are about to see the statistics that prove it.  Today, the United States spends more on health care per person than any other country in the world by far.  The health insurance companies and the big pharmaceutical corporations are raking in gigantic mountains of cash and yet the quality of the health care that we receive in return is rather quite poor.  People living in Puerto Rico have a greater life expectancy than we do.  Residents of Cuba have a lower infant mortality rate than we do.  We are the most medicated population on the planet and yet we are also one of the sickest.  If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would have the 6th largest economy on the globe and yet rates of cancer, heart disease and diabetes continue to increase.  The U.S. health care statistics that you are about to read below are absolutely stunning.  For as much money as we shell out for health care, we should have the greatest system in the entire world.  But we don't.  Something has gone horribly wrong.
As you read this, there are hordes of health bureaucrats and greedy corporate fatcats that are becoming incredibly wealthy while the rest of us go broke trying to pay for our health care.  In the United States today, health care bills cause more bankruptcies than anything else does.  Millions of Americans are afraid to go to the hospital because they know that even a short visit would be a huge financial burden.
Sadly, our politicians in Washington D.C. continue to make the problem worse.  Obamacare was one of the worst pieces of legislation that anyone has ever come up with in the history of the United States.  You could put a thousand monkeys in a room with a thousand typewriters for a thousand years and they wouldn't come up with anything as bad as Obamacare.  Rather than doing something to address the abuses of the health insurance companies and the pharmaceutical corporations, Obamacare actually gives them more power.  In fact, huge portions of Obamacare are virtually identical to a bill that was written by the health insurance trade association in 2009.  Under Obamacare our health care costs will go up even faster and the quality of our health care will continue to go down.  So please don't try to tell me that Obamacare is the solution to anything.
The health care system in the United States is so broken that it probably cannot be repaired.  The entire thing needs to be dismantled and completely reinvented.
If you doubt this, just check out the stats that I have compiled below.
As I put together this list of statistics, Business Insider proved to be a very valuable resource.  In addition, I relied heavily on the following articles which I previously authored....
*25 Shocking Facts That Prove That The Entire U.S. Health Care Industry Has Become One Giant Money Making Scam
*18 Ridiculous Statistics About Medical Bills, Medical Debt And The Health Care Industry That Will Make You So Mad You Will Want To Tear Your Hair Out
*The Coming Doctor Shortage
The following are 50 U.S. health care statistics that will absolutely astonish you....
#1 What the United States spent on health care in 2009 was greater than the entire GDP of Great Britain.
#2 According to the Bureau of Economic Analysis, health care costs accounted for just 9.5% of all personal consumption back in 1980.  Today they account for approximately 16.3%.
#3 The United States spent 2.47 trillion dollars on health care in 2009.  It is being projected that the U.S. will spend 4.5 trillion dollars on health care in 2019.
#4 One study found that approximately 41 percent of working age Americans either have medical bill problems or are currently paying off medical debt.
#5 According to a report published in The American Journal of Medicine, medical bills are a major factor in more than 60 percent of the personal bankruptcies in the United States.  Of those bankruptcies that were caused by medical bills, approximately 75 percent of them involved individuals that actually did have health insurance.
#6 Over the past decade, health insurance premiums have risen three times faster than wages have in the United States.
#7 The chairman of Aetna, the third largest health insurance company in the United States, brought in a staggering $68.7 million during 2010. Ron Williams exercised stock options that were worth approximately $50.3 million and he raked in an additional $18.4 million in wages and other forms of compensation.  The funny thing is that he left the company and didn't even work the whole year.
#8 The top executives at the five largest for-profit health insurance companies in the United States combined to receive nearly $200 million in total compensation for 2009.
#9 Even as the rest of the country struggled with a deep recession, U.S. health insurance companies increased their profits by 56 percent during 2009 alone.
#10 According to a report by Health Care for America Now, America's five biggest for-profit health insurance companies ended 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.
#11 In the United States, health insurance administration expenses account for 8 percent of all health care costs.  In Finland, that figure is just 2 percent.
#12 Health insurance rate increases are getting out of control.  According to the Los Angeles Times, Blue Shield of California announced plans earlier this year to raise rates an average of 30% to 35%, and some individual policy holders were slated to see their health insurance premiums rise by up to 59 percent.
#13 According to an article on the Mother Jones website, health insurance premiums for small employers in the U.S. increased 180% between 1999 and 2009.
#14 Since 2003, health insurance companies have shelled out more than $42 million in state-level campaign contributions.
#15 There were more than two dozen pharmaceutical companies that made over a billion dollars in profits each during 2008.
#16 Each year, tens of billions of dollars is spent on pharmaceutical marketing in the United States alone.
#17 Prescription drugs cost about 50% more in the United States than they do in other countries.
#18 Nearly half of all Americans now use prescription drugs on a regular basis according to a CDC report that was recently released. According to the report, approximately one-third of all Americans use two or more pharmaceutical drugs, and more than ten percent of all Americans use five or more drugs on a regular basis.
#19 According to the CDC, approximately three quarters of a million people a year are rushed to emergency rooms in the United States because of adverse reactions to pharmaceutical drugs.
#20 The Food and Drug Administration reported 1,742 prescription drug recalls in 2009, which was a gigantic increase from 426 drug recalls in 2008.
#21 Children in the United States are three times more likely to be prescribed antidepressants than children in Europe are.
#22 The percentage of women taking antidepressants in America is higher than in any other country in the world.
#23 Lawyers are certainly doing their part to contribute to soaring health care costs.  According to one recent study, the medical liability system in the United States added approximately $55.6 billion to the cost of health care in 2008.
#24 According to one doctor interviewed by Fox News, "a gunshot wound to the head, chest or abdomen" will cost $13,000 at his hospital the moment the victim comes in the door, and then there will be significant additional charges depending on how bad the wound is.
#25 Why are c-sections on the rise?  It is because a vaginal delivery costs approximately $5,992, while a c-section costs approximately $8,558.
#26 According to the CIA World Factbook, the United States had a higher infant mortality rate than 45 other nations in 2009.
#27 The infant mortality rate in the United States is nearly three times as high as it is in Singapore.
#28 It is estimated that hospitals overcharge Americans by about 10 billion dollars every single year.
#29 In fact, one trained medical billing advocate says that over 90 percent of all the medical bills that she has audited contain "gross overcharges".
#30 It is not uncommon for insurance companies to get hospitals to knock their bills down by up to 95 percent, but if you are uninsured or you don't know how the system works then you are out of luck.
#31 Over the last decade, the number of Americans without health insurance has risen from about 38 million to about 52 million.
#32 People living in the United States are three times more likely to have diabetes than people living in the United Kingdom.
#33 Today, people living in Puerto Rico have a greater life expectancy than people living in the United States do.
#34 According to OECD statistics, Americans are twice as obese as Canadians are.
#35 Back in 1965, only one out of every 50 Americans was on Medicaid.  Today, one out of every 6 Americans is on Medicaid.
#36 The U.S. government now says that the Medicare trust fund will run out five years faster than they were projecting just last year.
#37 It is being projected that the federal government will account for more than 50 percent of all health care spending in 2012.
#38 Greece has twice as many hospital beds per person as the United States does.
#39 The state of California now ranks dead last out of all 50 states in the number of emergency rooms per million people.
#40 According to one survey, approximately 1 out of every 4 Californians under the age of 65 has absolutely no health insurance.
#41 According to a PricewaterhouseCoopers report, "inefficient claims processing" costs the U.S. health care system 210 billion dollars every single year.
#42 Today, approximately 40% of all U.S. doctors are age 55 or older.
#43 According to the American Association of Medical Colleges, we were already going to be facing a shortage of more than 150,000 doctors over the next 15 years even before Obamacare was passed.
#44 An IBD/TIPP poll taken back in August 2009 found that 4 out of every 9 American doctors said that they "would consider leaving their practice or taking an early retirement" if Congress passed Obamacare.
#45 According to a survey published in the New England Journal of Medicine, approximately one-third of all practicing physicians in the United States indicated that they may leave the medical profession because of the new health care law.
#46 According to a Merritt Hawkins survey of 2,379 doctors that was conducted in August 2010, 40 percent of all U.S. doctors plan to "retire, seek a nonclinical job in health care, or seek a job or business unrelated to health care" at some point over the next three years.
#47 According to the executive director of Physician Hospitals of America, Obamacare has already forced the cancellation of at least 60 doctor-owned hospitals that were scheduled to open soon.
#48 According to a report released in 2010, Americans spend approximately twice as much as residents of other developed countries do on health care.
#49 If the U.S. health care system was a country, it would be the 6th largest economy in the entire world.
#50 According to numbers released by Deloitte Consulting, a whopping 875,000 Americans were "medical tourists" in 2010.
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Saturday, November 16, 2013

The State With The Most Rich People Also Has The Highest Poverty Rate

The State With The Most Rich People Also Has The Highest Poverty Rate  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/california-inequality_n_4277548.html?ir=Business#next_slideshow

The State With The Most Rich People Also Has The Highest Poverty Rate

Posted:   |  Updated: 11/15/2013 5:12 pm EST
California has both the most ultra-wealthy individuals and the highest poverty rate of any U.S. state, according to recent reports. "This chasm is growing day by day, year by year," Larry Gerston, professor of political science at San Jose State University, said to The Huffington Post. "Those at the top in California are just as happy as a clam. Their incomes are going up much faster than anyone else's." In 2013, the Golden-for-some State was home to the most -- 12,560 -- ultra-wealthy individuals, according to a new report by Wealth-X, a think tank focusing on wealthy people. New York had the second most, with 8,945 ultra-wealthy individuals. Wealth-X defines ultra-wealthy as having a net worth of at least $30 million. California gained even more ultra-wealthy individuals in 2013 than any other state, adding an additional 1,605 residents. Florida gained the second most, an additional 565 more than in 2012. But California also has the highest poverty rate in the nation, according to an analysis released Wednesday by the U.S. Census Bureau. Nearly one in four Californians -- about 24 percent of the overall population -- lives in poverty. Behind California, the District of Columbia and Nevada have the second and third highest poverty rates, according to the analysis. Across the U.S., about 16 percent of Americans live in poverty. The census analysis considered income, government benefits, taxes and cost of living. The official poverty threshold for a two-adult-two-child family was $23,283 in 2012. Around the Web: California still leads U.S., including in inequality | Reuters If CA a template for U.S. on income inequality, U.S. is doomed ... income inequality has grown in california - Center on Budget and ... California Goes Feudal - The Daily Beast California jobs report underscores deepening inequality - World ... Capitol Alert: California has a high level of income inequality - Blogs Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality - Stanford University The Stanford Center on Poverty and Inequality - California Poverty ... Capitol Alert: Study finds California high in family-income inequality Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States ...  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/14/california-inequality_n_4277548.html?ir=Business#next_slideshow

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Where There's Corruption, Where Else would you find the Obama Connection....

www.johnsonandtoxin.com/obama_connection.shtml



What's the Obama Connection with J&J?
While digging for information regarding corruption at Johnson & Johnson, I came across a few pieces of information that show there may be a connection between Johnson & Johnson and the Obamas. Maybe one of the readers of the site has information to help connect the dots here so we can all find out what is really going on.

Barack and Michelle Obama met at Sidley Austin, a law firm that regularly defends Johnson & Johnson. They married in 1992, in Chicago.

Shortly therefter, Michelle went into hospital administration, leaving an education in the legal system behind, and Barack into politics.
 
Alex Gorsky was with the Janssen unit of Johnson & Johnson in that same time frame. He started working at Johnson & Johnson in 1988. Risperdal, a product of the Janssen Unit of Johnson & Johnson approved in 1994, was Alex Gorsky's first big project. Fraudulent marketing and Medicaid fraud brought billions in revenue from Risperdal sales. The Janssen Unit of Johnson & Johnson has a facility in Naperville, IL, which is just outside of Chicago.
 
After Barak Obama was elected to Senator of Illinois in 2004 (in office in 2005), his wife, vice president for community and external affairs at University of Chicago Hospital, was given an extremely large raise. Her salary increased from$121,910 to $316,962. Was that consistent with increases for other administrative members of the hospital? This raise also directly corresponds with the timing of the USFDA Warning Letter sent to Johnson & Johnson regarding fraudulent marketing of Risperdal. The Medicaid Fraud associated with Risperdal was already occurring, but had not been uncovered yet.
 
Billy Boy Weldon gave Barack $1.5 million in 2011 in supposed support of ObamaCare, and refused to disclose to shareholders just how much of that was shareholder money. I tried to keep my eyes open to figure out of Obama claimed that money as either a donation or put it through campaign finance or put it through government offices, but couldn't find any details in public financial statements regarding exactly where that million and a half went. It would be interesting to know if that went in Obama's pocket? If so, for what? Better golf clubs to accompany him on a vacation to Billy Boy Weldon's mansion on a double lot in Lost Tree Villagein Florida?
 
In 2008, nine scientists reported corruption in the medical devices division of the FDA - "The purpose of this letter is to inform you that the scientific review process for medical devices at the FDA has been corrupted and distorted by current FDA managers, thereby placing the American people at risk," according to the scientists. Obama basically ignored the pleas of the scientists by telling them to turn to corrupt management to deal with corruption in management, huh? Really? Were the scientists over-reacting with regard to their warnings to the government and public? With pelvic mesh, insulin pumps, hips, knees, butt staplers in the US, butt staplers in Australia all being recalled due to safety issues and, as with pelvic mesh, insulin pumps and hips, safety data did exist showing lower effectiveness and increased risks to health prior to harm to full scale marketing and sales. This information was intentionally withheld from the FDA, doctors and consumers causing millions of people pain and suffering and costing our health care system billions in care for those injured by known defective, harmful products. No, it doesn't seem like those scientists were over-reacting when they specifically stated that the corruption in the medical devices department of the FDA will increase risks to consumers. In fact, it may have been a dramatic understatement. And just a little more info, the King of Corruption himself, Alex Gorsky has promised that the medical devices division of JNJ will boom. They even acquired Synthes, with a history of corruption and FDA violations, to tap into the corruption at the FDA. Hmm. Wait, you mean Gorsky, who was in control of medical devices at JNJ was yet again in the center ring for corruption of federal officials? Well, with Gorsky's Career Long Cloud of Corruption, he's got plenty of practice and they do say practice makes perfect!

Previous J&J CEO Billy Weldon was invited to the 2011 APEC Summit in Hawaii by president Obama. This is not really questionable since, granted, J&J is one of the most diversified and largest drug companies in the world. However, Johnson & Johnson, not the largest pharmaceutical company. In his speech, Weldon noted that "APEC countries are also experiencing a growing middle class and lifestyle changes that are linked to rising rates of non-communicable disease.." Yeah, such as using Johnson & Johnson toxic products. That pretty much sums it up.

When you consider all of the coincidences of connections between the Obama administration and Johnson & Johnson with corruption at the FDA opening the door for harmful, yet very profitable, medical devices along with the fact that the Obama's met at a law firm which worked directly for Johnson & Johnson and then Michelle tossed her legal career after a lifetime of education in law and then the out-of-proportion raise to Obummer's wife as a hospital administrator, the strange, unpopular and unaccounted for $1.5 million, the overlooked corruption in the FDA and the obvious lack of integrity of both Obama and Weldon, it seems as though there are questionable connections between Billy Weldon, Johnson & Johnson and Barack Obama.


Re-Post from the site:
www.johnsonandtoxin.com/obama_connection.shtml
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