Commonwealth Fund Survey Reveals Just How Little Access to Healthcare Americans over 65 Have
A survey, produced by the Commonwealth Fund, included more than 23,000 people from 11 developed countries, and revealed that American seniors were sicker than their counterparts in other countries and are more likely to go without needed health care because of costs.
Why should this be? For one thing, Americans are more likely to enter the 65-and-up age group with chronic diseases — heart disease, diabetes, hypertension — which aren’t curable but could have been headed off had people gotten better care earlier.
Yet surveys show Americans like Medicare. So at the very least, perhaps Medicare could be adjusted to fit better with the realities of our biology. That would mean pushing the age of eligibility to somewhere around 50...