In the wealthiest nation on earth, some elderly people are skipping meals in order to pay for medications
they need to stay alive. Some younger patients with serious illness have to wait until a crisis develops in order to
be admitted to an emergency room, their only access to
health care. Some doctors treating rich patients make millions of dollars a year providing enhancement procedures
(removing wrinkles and tuck tummy) while other
doctors are leaving the profession because they cannot
make a living on what they are paid for treating the poor.
Some HMOs that restrict critically needed therapies are
paying out rich dividends to shareholders while other
HMOs that provide the same services are in bankruptcy
and closing. Medical science is creating new drugs for
previously untreatable illnesses, but the drugs are so expensive that most people in the world remain sick and
die because neither they nor their health plans can pay
for them.