Our healthcare crisis is Coroner job security

This does not bode well for health and longevity:

At the onset of bad economic times, the demand for psychiatric services declines, with fewer visits for "maintenance" but eventually more for acute episodes…

I expect that medical care providers will first see a small decrease in demand as copayments become more onerous, more patients lose their insurance…

As time passes, however, I would expect to see increased demand for services from people who "deferred maintenance" because of costs and therefore become ill.

Along with this:

As economic conditions continue to worsen, the public is increasingly worried about the affordability and availability of care, with many postponing or skipping treatments due to cost in the past year and a notable minority forced into serious financial straits due to medical bills, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s first health care tracking poll of 2009.

All great for coroner job security, but a crushing problem for people and our country.

The time to do something about “healthcare reform” is now (realizing that when most folks talk about healthcare reform they are talking primarily about reform of how we access and pay for healthcare). Everyone must have access to care (and not just acute care), we must make prevention and wellness a high priority, we must make sure health care is safe and of high quality, and health care coverage must be affordable and portable.