A rapidly spreading flu outbreak may quickly overload a U.S. health system already straining from hospital closures, cuts in public health funding, a nursing shortage and too many uninsured patients, Reuters quoted health experts as saying today. They said the threat of a flu pandemic caused by an unusual new strain of the H1N1 influenza virus has shone a bright light on what may see as a broken U.S. health system. "I don't think we are anywhere near ready" for a pandemic, said Deborah Burger of the California Nurses Association in a telephone interview. "We've already been behind the eight-ball. Patients have been delaying their care and treatment because of the economy," Burger said. "They've had major losses of healthcare benefits and job losses, so they are not being able to afford the medicines they would normally be taking, let alone being able to have access to any of the kind of healthcare for this possible pandemic." The country's most severe recession in a generation has cost more than 5 million jobs since it began in late 2007, and and an estimated 46 million Americans already lacked health insurance.
