Ariddia
31-03-2008, 16:52
In what is believed to be the first such move, a US state is running a lottery in which the prize is health insurance.
With some 45 million Americans uninsured, how to pay for medical treatment is a big issue in this year's presidential election.
Now officials in Oregon say they have come up with a fair way of providing coverage for some of those who cannot afford it.
In her comfortable home in Portland, Oregon, Louanne Moldovan sifts through a pile of papers.
They are unpaid medical bills, stretching back a year, arising from treatment for Crohn's Disease, the chronic intestinal condition she suffers from. She thinks she owes nearly $15,000 (£7,500) in all.
Louanne says she is looking for full-time employment but, she adds, her earnings through freelance work will not buy enough health insurance for the treatment she needs. For her the state healthcare lottery offers an uneasy solution.
"It's a symbol of how degraded our system is in this country that we are resorting to a lottery," she tells me.
"It's pathetic and repugnant at the same time... [but it's] a necessity because I don't earn thousands each month."
Many do not share her feelings, but Louanne is not alone in trying her luck. More than 90,000 in Oregon are vying for a maximum of 10,000 places in the state's healthcare plan.
Yet it is a drop in the ocean. There are some 600,000 uninsured in Oregon.
At the Outside In community clinic in downtown Portland, doctors see 7,000 different patients a year, 90% of whom have no health insurance.
The clinic's director, John Duke, says the lottery provides hope for the few who are picked but is indicative of a wider problem.
"I think it says it's a pretty sad state of the health care system in Oregon and in the nation as a whole," he says.
"I think the system is falling apart and it needs some radical deep change.
"This is a small Band-Aid. I think the best it can do is draw attention to the problem and maybe bring change in that way."
(link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7321500.stm))
Amazing... And yet there will always be people flocking to defend the screwed-up ideology that causes this kind of mess and misery.
With some 45 million Americans uninsured, how to pay for medical treatment is a big issue in this year's presidential election.
Now officials in Oregon say they have come up with a fair way of providing coverage for some of those who cannot afford it.
In her comfortable home in Portland, Oregon, Louanne Moldovan sifts through a pile of papers.
They are unpaid medical bills, stretching back a year, arising from treatment for Crohn's Disease, the chronic intestinal condition she suffers from. She thinks she owes nearly $15,000 (£7,500) in all.
Louanne says she is looking for full-time employment but, she adds, her earnings through freelance work will not buy enough health insurance for the treatment she needs. For her the state healthcare lottery offers an uneasy solution.
"It's a symbol of how degraded our system is in this country that we are resorting to a lottery," she tells me.
"It's pathetic and repugnant at the same time... [but it's] a necessity because I don't earn thousands each month."
Many do not share her feelings, but Louanne is not alone in trying her luck. More than 90,000 in Oregon are vying for a maximum of 10,000 places in the state's healthcare plan.
Yet it is a drop in the ocean. There are some 600,000 uninsured in Oregon.
At the Outside In community clinic in downtown Portland, doctors see 7,000 different patients a year, 90% of whom have no health insurance.
The clinic's director, John Duke, says the lottery provides hope for the few who are picked but is indicative of a wider problem.
"I think it says it's a pretty sad state of the health care system in Oregon and in the nation as a whole," he says.
"I think the system is falling apart and it needs some radical deep change.
"This is a small Band-Aid. I think the best it can do is draw attention to the problem and maybe bring change in that way."
(link (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7321500.stm))
Amazing... And yet there will always be people flocking to defend the screwed-up ideology that causes this kind of mess and misery.