Health care cost increases threaten system's sustainability: Moren says getting health care has been worse than the machete attack.

• Author: Resz, Heather A.
• Position: HEALTH & MEDICINE

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Getting medical care shouldn't be worse than testifying at the trial of the man who hacked your fiance to death with a machete.

It shouldn't be more dehumanizing than when that madman turned on you, landing more than two dozen blows severing two fingertips and obliterating your elbow and your independence.

Elan Moren lived through the brutal attack in her Palmer home Dec. 2, 2007, but she inherited another right to access the medical care that her broken body now requires.

"The attack lasted maybe 15 minutes," she said. "This is about the rest of my life."

Moren describes her year-long struggle to access medical care as more grueling and dehumanizing than the crime that placed her in these new life circumstances. She is one of an estimated 45 million uninsured people in the United States.

"Pain management, there's the nightmare," she said. "If I'd known my right hand would feel like it's in a vise all the time, I'd have let it curl up into a claw."

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Moren lives with daily pain levels between eight and nine on a scale of 10. Prescription medication dulls the pain to a level five.

She's struggled to manage her pain since she was released after three weeks from Mat-Su Regional Medical Center on Dec. 23, 2007, with five days of pain medication. It would be more than three months before Moren could get in to see a doctor who'd agree to accept her as a pain-management patient.

Before Moren was assaulted, she worked for three-and-a-half years as a personal care assistant. Ironically, she now needs the same type of care she used to provide to others, and has been approved to receive help a few hours a week.

"I've seen both sides of the wheelchair," Moren said.

In her unique view, there is a clear fault line in the U.S. health care system.

"When you turn your paperwork in, you become a number," Moren said. "The people are caring, but the system isn't. We're dealing with healing issues in an uncaring way. They're dealing with paper stuff, and I'm dealing with life issues."

MORE HEALTH CARE DOLLARS SPENT IN U.S.

The U.S. owns the dual distinctions of both spending more per capita on health care than any other nation and being the only industrialized nation without a national system to guarantee affordable health care for all.

In terms of numbers, the U.S. spent more than $2.4 trillion on health care in 2008--more than $5.3 billion in Alaska--while some 46 million people nationwide--more than 18 percent of Alaska's population--were uninsured.

Measured another way, health care spending represents 17 percent of the country's gross domestic product. And if present rates of increase continue, the U.S. will spend 20 percent of its GDP on health care by 2017. That's an estimated $4.3 trillion annually.

Compare the U.S. to Switzerland, which spends 10 percent of its GDP; Germany, 10.5 percent; Canada, 8.6 percent; and France, 9.8 percent, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

But do we get our collective money's worth for our super-sized spending? Are we healthier for our heavy investments?

John Riley, coordinator of the physician assistant program in the Department of Health Sciences at the University of Alaska Anchorage, says the answer is no on both counts.

In terms of common health indicators, such as life expectancy and infant mortality, the U.S. only cracks the top 30.

As a nation, our life expectancy is 77.9 and ranks 34th in the world behind...