Massachusetts citizens spend more on health care than peopleanywhere in the world, yet pockets of the state have higher infantmortality rates than some poor countries, according to acomparative study of health care statistics released yesterday.
The uneven distribution of health care benefits in the face ofrapidly rising costs was described in a report issued inMassachusetts and 37 other states by Citizen Action, a nationalconsumer research and lobbying group.
Increasing health care costs consumed 91 percent of the growthin personal income that Massachusetts residents enjoyed during theboom years of 1980 through 1987, according to the study, but boththe state and nation lag behind other countries in standard healthindicators such as life expectancy, birthweight and child mortality.
'The cost of health care is spiraling way out of control,while the health of our nation is declining,' said Cynthia Ward,director of the Massachusetts chapter of Citizen Action, at a StateHouse news conference. 'We are spending more and getting less.'
The study reviewed statistics from the federal Health CareFinancing Administration, the international Organization forEconomic Cooperation and Development, and the United Nations tocompare the cost and quality of health care in the United Stateswith other nations worldwide.
The US fares particularly poorly in the study when comparedwith five nations considered to be economic competitors -- Japan,West Germany, Canada, England and France -- all of which havenational health care programs for their citizens.
For example, health care measured in US dollars costs theaverage household $2,051 annually here, compared to $917 in Japanand $1,515 in Canada. Infant mortality rates in the United Statesaverage 10 for every 1,000 births, while the rate in Japan is halfthat -- 5 per 1,000 -- and Canada's 7.9 per 1,000.
In Massachusetts, the infant mortality rate is lower than theUS average -- 7.2 per 1,000 -- but in isolated counties such asHampden and Nantucket, and in urban Suffolk County, infantmortality rates are higher than in Jamaica, Romania and the USSR.
David Mulligan, commissioner of the state Department of PublicHealth, said the report's statistics are consistent with previousstudies. He said expensive technologies in Boston's teachinghospitals drive up health care costs, but benefit a relative fewcompared to basic prenatal care and nutrition programs.
'We have unevenness of access in our nation,' Mulligan said.'Many of the European nations may not have the peaks we have interms of some of the high technology offerings, but they have abetter basic offering to their citizens.'
Mulligan said the state's health care reimbursement systemshould be reorganized to make basic primary care as attractivefinancially as high-tech medicine. 'High tech has its place, butit has to be balanced with the desire to spread the most basic ofhealth care services to all citizens,' he said.
He said that when the universal health care law signed byGov. Dukakis in 1988 is fully implemented in 1992, it should helpisolated populations not now receiving adequate care.
The Citizen Action report criticized the 'patchwork' ofprivate and public health insurance plans in the United States,which leaves millions of Americans uninsured.
Marge Power, a Citizen Action member and mother of three fromDorchester, said at the news conference her family was forced touse money intended for a down payment on a house to pay forhospital bills for her daughter because the family had noinsurance. 'As far as I'm concerned, the health care industryruined my family's chances of owning a home,' she said.
Rob Restuccia, director of the Massachusetts activist groupHealth Care for All, said there is 'tremendous waste andinefficiency' in the state's health care delivery system, despitenumerous attempts at reform. At the news conference, he said theuniversal health care law addressed access to health care, but was'quite generous' to doctors and hospitals.
Responding later to Restuccia's charges, Alison Snyder,spokeswoman for the Massachusetts Hospital Association, contendedthat hospitals are not the driving force behind rising health carerates, and instead blamed the price of prescription drugs,state-mandated benefits for the poor, and administrative costs. LOTH ;04/30 CORCOR;05/01,22:08 HEALTH01
