Universal Health Care Shouldn’t Be Reduced, Lancet Says

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-06/universal-health-care-shouldn-t-be-reduced-lancet-says.html

Expansion of government-subsidized medical care improves health and should be maintained in times of economic crisis, according to a survey of research.

Programs such as Medicare for senior citizens and Medicaid for the poor in the U.S. and similar programs in other countries led to increased use of preventive, inpatient and outpatient services and better health status for previously uninsured populations, Peter Smith and Rodrigo Moreno-Serra of Imperial College London wrote in The Lancet medical journal today.

Their paper comes as U.S. President Barack Obama’s 2010 health-care overhaul faces attacks by the Republican party in an election year. The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, has vowed to repeal the law and last week adopted a platform that advocates Medicare changes in which senior citizens are given financial support to purchase private insurance to stem the increase in public debt.

“The available evidence has shown that when Medicaid and Medicare were expanded, the beneficiaries saw an improvement in health status and suffered less financially,” Moreno-Serra said in a phone interview. “If countries rely more and more on private spending, this will be detrimental to health outcomes and financial security.”

[Vincardog]

1. File this under "DUH".