The Real Healthcare ‘Chart of the Day’
by Dan MitchellAndrew Sullivan posted the following chart, which he found in National Geographic, and he noted, with considerable justification, that this was evidence of an insane and inefficient healthcare system in America.
The chart shows that America spends a lot more than other nations without a concomitant increase in life expectancy. Let’s set aside whether the right side of the chart is a bit misleading because American life-expectancy numbers are influenced by things that have nothing to do with the quality of the healthcare system, such as highway fatalities, homicides, and obesity, and focus on Andrew’s claim that Obama’s proposal will make things better because of its “cost-control measures.” Since the Administration’s own experts have predicted that Obama’s proposal will increase total healthcare spending, one can only wonder what he’s talking about. Does he actually think a new government entitlement program will lead to lower costs, when all the evidence suggests otherwise?
If he really wanted a chart that captures what’s wrong with America’s healthcare system, he should have gone to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ national health expenditures data website and downloaded the figures showing how rampant third-party payment has resulted in consumers directly paying for less than 12 percent of healthcare costs. And when people are purchasing something with (what is perceived to be) other people’s money, it’s understandable that they don’t pay much attention to cost. My homemade chart does not compare to the one produced by National Geographic, but it does identify the real problem. Sadly, Obama’s plan (like Bush’s Medicare expansion, and everything else politicians have done for the past 50 years) will exacerbate the third-party payment problem and lead to even higher costs and more inefficiency.
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88 Comments
But that is the idea! To make it so expensive that the middle class will have to move to a Public Option. Check mate!
Quite frankly, there is no Health Care Crisis, and begging Obamas pardon, I respectfully disagree with his public statements, that "If left unchecked, the healthcare crisis will bankrupt America in the next decade". That is all hyperbole and conjecture. Let US deal with facts. Let US deal with here and now.
What WE do have, is a Crisis of CONfidence in our elected representatives, and a totally bankrupted nation. That is the here and now. It is a CONgressional, and Constitutional Crisis, all brought to US by the moron who promised Hope and Change.
Face those Facts!
We don't expect our automobile insurance policy to pay for an oil change and we don't try to use our homeowner's coverage pay for adding-on that new family room. If healthcare insurance were used appropriately, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
The only REAL health care crisis, is the fraud in Medicare and Medicaid! Why won't they even address that??
Lets look at all the well managed government run programs.
1st)
2nd)
3rd)
Can someone help me out here I could not think of any.
We also put a lot of money into trying to save people with extremely expensive problems that would probably not get such expensive care in other countries–but, this chart can't address that. I'm thinking things like extremely premature babies–hundreds of thousands just to get home. Similarly, spina bifida, one of the most common birth defects; I believe the average is about $100 K for the first year's treatments to maximize potential. Our infant mortality is high compared to other countries and maternal mortality is a shame too. Yet we don't know why there are so many neonatal problems because more attention is paid to treatment, which makes more money for more people. And these disadvantaged babies grow up to have more problems and a shorter average life too, and their caregivers are more stressed. I'm not saying we should kill weak babies! I think it's to our credit that we try our best to save them, but in our system as a whole, I think it must be a seriously skewing factor on both cost and life expectancy that deserves more attention.
This bill is not and has never been about healthcare, it is about government control. This is the most unpopular bill of our lifetime but that matters not to the liberals in Congress who see a chance to usurp our personal freedom of choice in the most private matter of our life…our health. If they get away with this without serious blow-back they should feel free to enact ANY law they deem necessary. Lenin said "Medicine is the archway to socialism."
Agreed.
He has taken "If left unchecked, the health care crisis will bankrupt America in the next decade," and added, so my administration & my whores (as in votes for sale) in Congress will bankrupt the country now so we will not have to face it later & I can blame it all on Bush & the Republicans.
They have. They said they'd pay for the public option by getting rid of medicare fraud.
there is a heavy mixture of both fact and fiction here…
yes, healtcare costs will bankrupt the US- eventually. The unfunded mandate of Medicare'Medicaid will pop the bubble if not addressed. Barry is right about that.
However, this evil charade is neither going to reduce health care costs (tort reform? perish the tought) nor make it more available. The number of medical satff and services is fixed. Adding tens of millions of people will simply cause de facto rationing. Heck, if you die before you can see the specialist because he's booked for three months
that's RATIONING plain and simple.
As John Vernon said in 'Outlaw Josie Wales':
"Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining'…
I read somewhere …A number of people in Japan bribe others to get health care denied them by the govt. in Japan.
Excluding fatal injuries the US has the highest life span in the world.
http://riffenberg.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/us-has...
They're pretty consistent with making sure that they get their cut of my paycheck each month. They haven't missed one yet!
and unlike other countries, we use the amount spent by the govt. AND by private citizens to determine how much of the GDP is health care costs. Other countries use only govt. expenses for health care to determine how much everyone spends on health care. Most people buy private insurance to augment their govt. health care..
Follow the money…. Who is selling? Who is making the big bucks? The constitution was written for a reason and it wasn’t about HC or profits. Insurance is high to due to regulations end of story.
There is a very real health care crisis.
Ever since the World War II wage controls induced employers to offer group coverage as an added benefit, and the government allowed the continued deductability of costs from such an arrangement, followed by Medicare and Medicaid, the HMO acts, and the ever growing number of people who refuse to budget and demand to be taken care of, this nation has been in the grips of a very destructive health care crisis.
Namely, the government has skewed the market, and attempt to correct the consequences of each round of meddling with yet more meddling. The public is fighting a losing battle against group plans, tax laws, red tape, coverage mandates, rigged markets, fixed prices, trial lawyers, intrastate restrictions, and a whole host of other dizzying problems coming between citizens and the availability of the plan they wish to enroll in.
Health coverage is already one of the most regulated markets. It should come as no surprise that it is also one of the most broken.
Health care needs to be restored to what it should have been all along: a simple transaction between an individual and a chosen provider, to transfer real risk (not copays on $10 prescriptions) away from the user and to the insurance company.
The role of the state is to ensure honest dealing, not to mandate that all plans include coverage for chiropractors, hair transplants, or yoga therapy. (all required in Massachusetts)
The role of the insurance company is to absorb and spread risk, not collude with other insurance companies to strong-arm doctors into establishing a tiered price schedule (which is price fixing, plain and simple), in which coverage acts not only as insurance but a perverse sort of customer loyalty card.
The role of employers is precisely zero. All-cash compensation packages provide the greatest market efficiency, by ensuring that bad decisions (or simply decisions which can't be generalized to thousands, all at once) made in HR can't be transmitted to large groups of citizens.
good post!
as to a high infant mortality, it's higher because there are different rules for counting in different countries including not counting as a live birth what's counted as such in the US.
A little prospective:
1 Million seconds = ~11 1/2 days
1 Billion seconds = ~32yrs
1 Trillion seconds = ~32,000yrs
53 Trillion seconds = ~1,700,000yrs (This is the projected Medicare and SS funding gap)
A trillion here, and a trillion there, are ENORMOUS numbers…
We have a winner! They are pretty good at taking money away from the working people.
Pretty soon you're talking about real money.
It is no accident the statistics are skewed for US infant mortality. They are from the UN's WHO..
http://riffenberg.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/us-bir...
Our infant mortality is high, compared to Western Europe, because of several factors having nothing to do with health care quality.
First, Western Europe has a far higher abortion rate, especially among children whose survival is questionable based on prenatal diagnostics. A terminated pregnancy does not figure into statistics concerning child mortality.
Second, in Europe, not all children who die after birth are necessarily counted as having been born alive, due to differences in the definition of a "live birth."
Third, in America, there is a far higher percentage of expectant mothers abusing alcohol and/or drugs. Substance abuse raises infant mortality, but is not a reflection on the quality of a health care system.
Precisely.
This nation has too many health plans and not enough health insurance.
HDHPs, which are about the only real insurance left, are being killed off by the statist meddlers, who have decided on behalf of the rest of us that citizens paying small costs out of pocket to avoid unnecessary resource use or paperwork is an abhorrent situation not to be allowed in the new era of hope and change.
How many of us have our personal finances in order, such that we can budget and plan for small, recurring, or otherwise expected expenses? Nobody expects citizens to pay out of pocket should they be hit by a bus, but the idea that we must somehow "insure" against an expected and inexpensive yearly physical is patent nonsense.
How many of you are guilty for getting that $200 flu shot (on insurance) from your doctor, when Walgreen's gives flu shots for less than $30?
Big Government must not be used to cover up personal irresponsibility or poor decision making.
1) Separate deaths from violent crime and defense (we defend the world and this affects the life expectancy).
2) Separate costs for new drug, device and procedure development and patents – we do more for the world than any other country.
3) Get the government OUT of all healthcare – the actions of government totally corrupt the cost of medical care – (60 B annual fraud in Medicare).
4) We should all pay for our day to day costs via HSA's and all carry catastrophic care insurance for the unexpected – only then will we know how much everything costs.
Yeah, that will do it!
Perhaps we should just import the Japanese themselves, since their healthy lifestyles would act as a great statistical counterbalance to the millions of Americans addicted to fast food and television-centric sedentary lifestyles.
This nation needs to have an honest and intelligent discussion on health problems as a whole, not just political talking points concerning the provision of health care. That discussion can't happen without mentioning the millions of Americans sitting in front of televisions all day, with a cigarette in one hand, and a king-size bucket of fried chicken in the other.
The Democrats on the hill, who have traditionally lamented the epidemic of obesity and sedentary lifestyles in America (usually as a talking point supporting a pork social program) have completely buried all mention of unhealthy lifestyles, and for good reason.
Why has the party of the nanny-staters suddenly stopped discussing the lifestyle angle? This should be a huge warning to anyone who thinks this bill is still about health care.
Just to clarify my point, adults do have the right to make poor lifestyle choices
The outcomes of this group, however, cannot be held against what little freedom remains in our broken health care market. Adults who willingly choose not to care for their own health do not represent a failure of the health care system.
Very well said!!
Why does anyone care what Andrew Sullivan has to say? He is a wac job – still looking to find Trig's birthmother. Who gives this wack job the time of day?
I would like to see charts that compare government to private sector costs and efficiencies.
I have no problem with saying costs are too high, they are, but I think mixing government run programs with private programs is a mistake, you are averaging the problems of one into the other.
Life expectancy differences even if accurate between 78.5 vs 79.2 is not exactly a reason to rejoice if you are a Brit, the top end looks like about 82.5, these also dont show quality of care or quality of life issues either.
Having a bad hip that is not replaced isnt going to effect your life expextancy much, but it will make your last years miserable, the quality index would be more interesting with the relative closeness of the numbers
Life expectancy has more do with genes and lifestyle then health care service, when you look at life ending illnesses such as cancer our survival rates are much higher
Healthcare is the so called "holy grail" of socialism , the demacrates know that there is no crisis. This fit`s very well with Saul Alinsky`s "rules for radicals" .In his book one of the rules is to create a crisis and use it. He was also very militant about "the ends justifies the means" no matter what means you must use. Wake up fellow American`s …this is not just another left vs right political debate , this is a war for our countries future.
shamless plug of my blog: http://politics101-conservativeutopia.blogspot.co...
Sullivan went crazy when he caught jungle fever for Obama.
"Life expectancy has more do with genes and lifestyle then health care service, when you look at life ending illnesses such as cancer our survival rates are much higher."
Bingo.
Compared to other countries, America has a large diverse population with lots of personal freedom. That makes comparing it to anywhere else problematic at best.
It's easy (ish) to control health care spending when you're country is small, homogeneous and fairly placid.
"Health coverage is already one of the most regulated markets. It should come as no surprise that it is also one of the most broken."
And the statist remedy for this is of course, more regulation. This would be funny if it wasn't true.
Right? The guy is about as bright as a twenty watt light bulb and about as reliable as a whore's promise of fidelity.
Here is a good visual example of a trillion.
http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html
Pay up suckas.
soooooo… uh.. forgive me for being obtuse. why not stop the fraud, say.. 20 years ago? that's a BS trump card and we all (well, most of us) know it.
Just from what I heard from Obama out of Hawaii, we're in trouble! Healthcare is just another part of the plan to destroy our country as we know it!
Because they're the government; they know better than we do. I'm sure there was a good reason for the flagrant waste of taxpayer money.
If you want to fix healthcare costs, encourage people to cancel their health insurance policies, and become 'self insured'. When the costs of healthcare come out of your own pocket three important things happen.
1) You pay attention to the cost of services, and shop for the best balance between quality and cost. This happens currenlty with procedures that are not covered by insurance, such as Lasik and Plastic Surgery. These two procedures have seen an increase in quality and a decrease in cost because of this competition.
2) Doctors don't need to fill out the reimbursement froms for medicare/medicaid or insurance companies for your visit. This frees up (1) their time, and (2) their money since they don't need to hire staff to fill out those forms. The freed up money allows them to lower costs to be competitive with other Doctors, (since you are now shopping for the best deal). Many Doctors will discout your visit by as much as half, if you self-pay.
3) Private non-profit organizations would spring up to assist the poor with their health care costs. After all, it is the role of society, not government, to assist those in need.
Private non-profit organizations would spring up to assist the poor with their health care costs. After all, it is the role of society, not government, to assist those in need.
Truer words have never been typed.
Compare whites to whites and blacks to blacks, asians to asians etc. and America suddenly has a higher life expectancy. But that goes against Progresslam so you'll never see it broken out like that.
If there was a "health care crisis" it would also be directly related to an "illegal immigrant crisis." You cannot absorb 20 million non-paying illegals into the health care system without exploding the cost of care to everybody else.
Long story short, friend of family said "Don't get hurt in Canada." He went snow mobiling in Canada, had an accident which he survived and was conscious after, but came home dead. Like Liam Niesen's wife.
Democrats accused Republicans of making billions off LOBBYISTS while the Republicans were in power…….
Now Republicans accuse Democrats of making billions off LOBBYISTS now that Democrats are in power…….
COMMON THREAD IS THAT DEMOCRATS AND REPUBLICANS ARE MAKING MILLIONS OFF LOBBYISTS
WHILE RIDING ON THE BACKS OF THE PUBLIC…….
The solution is term limits for all of Congress…..just like the President……and making Congress abide by the same rules and live under the same programs that the public does.
Andrew Sullivan needs to be shown the door.
Andrew who?
We may spend more but if we do, it is well worth it.
With few exceptions, the US also has the highest 5 yr. survival rate for all types of cancer. http://riffenberg.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/us-vs-...
This is due to the several factors. The wait time( a form of rationing and cost containment) for testing and surgery is a non-issue here. In Great Britain for some diseases, 20% of the non-terminal become terminal because they wait too long for testing and medical procedures. In the UK only 42% of all stroke patients receive a CT Scan within 24 hours..
In America, insurers approve drugs deemed too expensive by other countries with state health care. An example, (but not the only example) is the drug Herpectin. It is very effective for the treatment of breast cancer but it is not used in New Zealand as widely as it is here because it cost $60,000 a year. We have more CT and MRI machines than other countries.
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200903/postrel-dru...
.
We get Nat'l Geographic, and my husband I had quite a discussion about the chart and how out of whack it is–how it's impossible to compare us to other countries.
Some thoughts:
Japan has the highest life expectancy for a pittance compared to America. So, shouldn't we we just import Japan's healthcare system?
The life expectancy between the US and Japan is about 4.5 years difference–when you consider the lifestyle we get to live as Americans, who cares?!
We need to go to an "ala carte system". Our expenses per person are higher because most of us are paying premiums for services we'll never use, such as gastric bypass.
Personally, I think that the average wait time and cost for health care will drastically decrease once we get the coming Civil War over with and kill off all these stupid liberals….
…but that's just me.
My thoughts exactly. What we call health insurance is not really insurance at all. It is pre-paid healthcare and, as the chart from the CMS data shows, our dysfunctional system encourages people to take out more than they put in to the system.
Let me ask a fairly obvious question. Why did National Geographic create such a graph? I miss the naked African ladies of my youth and their reports on things, well, geographic. I canceled my subscription when it became obvious that they were obviously just shills for the left. "Global warming", now healthcare. No thanks. Ditto for Readers Digest.
Sullivan is wrong to draw the conclusion he has – and Nation Geographic too if they did. Life expectancy is a poor proxy for the effectiveness of health care systems at the level of nation states. See, for example, Preston an Ho, "Low Life Expectancy in the United States: Is the Health Care System at Fault?", Population Studies Center, PSC Working Paper Series, University of Pennsylvania, 2009.
http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?a...
Also check out this data from the CMS' Medical Expenditure Panel Survey:
"For the two year period 2005-2006, 1 percent of the population accounted for 18.7 percent of total health care expenditures and the top 5 percent of spenders over the two year period accounted for 44 percent of aggregate spending. The lower half of the population ranked by total medical expenditures over the two year period accounted for only 4.3 percent of spending."
http://www.meps.ahrq.gov/mepsweb/data_files/publi...
I take this to mean that a small percent of the population are sucking up a huge chunk of the total healthcare dollars.
What ever the government touches ends up being more costly, less efficient, and ends up reducing quality and service.
This is nothing but another massive entitlement program designed to buy votes, generate kickbacks, and put more controls into place over people's lives.
You can rationalize theft and tyranny all you want, you can chart it in color, you can force kids to sing about it, you can plaster commie chic posters all over town, or dream of chiseling the face of your beloved tyrant America hating leader onto Mt. Rushmore.
It doesn’t change the fact that Obama and his supporters along with every other "Progressive" are nothing but cheap thugs and thieves that have never, and will never be able to create anything other than poverty and misery paid for off the backs of others.
The left is a cancer and the freedom loving people of this country are going to be the chemo that kills it. So enjoy any pyrrhic victories while you can you lefty bastages because your headlong rush towards your "Dream" of a new America is going to turn into a nightmare for you in very short order and you will have no one to blame but yourselves.
fantastic points. all too often people are looking at raw data, and making a direct correlation to a health care system. i've always thought that to be puzzling.
Contrary to sullivan and National Geographic Mexico has universal healthcare. http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/05/04/f-healt...
Thanks, anonymous. I was going to venture a guess that drug and/or alcohol abuse is a likely factor in infant health issues in the US – mine is strictly anecdotal "evidence," but it sure makes sense. During one of my own three pregnancies, my OB/GYN had told me that, for a scheduled dental visit, to be certain to tell the dentist I was pregnant; I did, and the dentist opined that the caution was "probably in the event of an X-ray," and he proceeded to give me Novacaine. When I reported the pain-killer to my OB/GYN, he went ballistic, called my dentist on the phone, and thoroughly reamed him out ("incompetent quack" was one of the milder phrases). I was too embarrassed to ever return to that dentist, but I still refer to my OB doc as someone who could "walk on water."
Why does no one ever mention the face that the U.S. subsidizes virtually every other nation on earth by being the only significant for-profit system in the world?
American health care consumers pay for all the R&D done on drugs, treatments, technology, etc., because every other nationalized system is permitted to dictate the price to the providers.
Why do folks "re-import" drugs from Canada? Because the Canadian government tells drug companies "We're paying manufacturing costs + X for your drugs". Once the U.S. starts doing that too, there will be no more new drugs, no more new technology, no more new treatments.
So to compare our systems on costs is a false comparison. We not only allow the development of new drugs and technology, but we subsidize their use in foreign nations.
How about the U.S. government starts charging a tax on all exported drugs that are not sold at the same price that they're sold in the U.S. (taking into account cost of living/GDP differences)? We could also levy a tax on imports for the same reason. We'd pay for healthcare for the poor with loads to spare.
Amen. I have been asking where is the Healthcare Gecko? Eliminate the deductibility for businesses and lower payroll taxes to offset. That will give birth to the Healthcare Gecko and he will save us!
I've blogged on this at http://www.ibdst.blogspot.com
I noticed that they talked about the low costs in Japan. I've lived in that country for over 20 years, where I have the local government health insurance. When I was self-employed, I was paying about $600 per month for a family of 4, and we have to pay 30% of the cost of all treatments, no matter how expensive! I'd rather self-insure myself for minor illnesses and injuries and get a low-cost, high deductible private plan that covers me for catastrophic illnesses. Here, even if you're insured by the government, you can still be bankrupted by health costs.
How do they save money? Few clinics or hospitals operate on an appointment basis. You show up and wait in line, and if it's a big hospital, you'll get a different doctor every time. Optical isn't covered, nor is anything beyond basic dental (stainless steel caps on those teeth, anyone?). Need a chiropractor? Forget it! Hospitals tend to be poorly maintained and not too clean – not enough nurses or staff. A few years ago I visited a business partner who had undergone a heart operation at a well-known hospital in Tokyo, and found that the walls in his room had mold in the corners and paint peeling off in strips! Costs are low – but would you want this kind of care? Medical technology is almost totally dependent on the USA. I'll take private insurance any time!
Factor in the thickness of the lines that indicate the number of doctor visits per year and you have broken the code, to live long, visit the doctor.
Second point, if I understand the situation correctly, statistics such as infant mortality, country to country, define an infant differently.
Third point, USA is a big country, Japan is small, transportation costs differ…etc.
Yeah. This distresses me. This life expectancy thing is an almost useless stat when correlated to life expectancy. Since Mormons and Japanese are among the longest living folks on Earth. So what does that say about our health spending???? Nothing. This chart shows more about cultures that eat fish than spending. The point here is never buy liberals premises. I know the author is not a liberal but this article seems to spin off of the liberals' life expectancy arguments.
Ovomit, leave my health care and my health insurance alone! Pretend you are concerned about national security.
Maybe some acting lessons from your hollywood friends would help!
Your chart is dead on. As Walter Williams said – years ago – [something like] If somebody else is buying my food, I'd eat better, and my dog would too.
Nat'l Geo used to be good when it was about, you know geography. now it's just the usual left wing crap and it sucks.
It's an unpopular reality, but markets need pain. Otherwise, they become anemic. Not paying (enough of) one's own health-care expenses is an excellent example.
I agree. Right now, health care decisions are being made by insurance companies – not much difference between that situation and the government being involved. Most individuals do not care about cost and generating competition in the industry. They are not paying the bill. Their companies are paying their insurance costs. Carry this one more step and you realize that we are paying their insurance premium through higher costs in goods and services the companies pass on to consumers. It might be better if it became illegal for companies to purchase insurance for employees. If individuals had to purchase their own insurance or purchase medical services on the open market, we might get competition.
180 degrees incorrect. Huge difference between an insurance company making decisions and the Govt. doing it. Your right that most individuals aren't involved in looking at cost – but their insurance company sure is. They negotiate "preferred" rates of all medical services with Dr. and Hospital groups, to keep the costs of the entire program's premiums down for everyone, because the compete with other insurance companies for those premium holders. 95% of what an Insurance company collects in premiums, is paid out again in claims spread over the population/group the insure, so they work hard at cost-containment. Never seen a Govt. program that could even pronounce cost-containment. My wife just finished two surgeries and treatment for Cancer. Our insurance company paid out, on her behalf, about $180K in medical expenses. Checking over the Dr. and Hospital billing statements, if we'd been paying their "market" rates, instead of the Insurance Companies negotiated rates, that bill would have been closer to $400K.
[...] Via Instapundit, Economist Dan Mitchell says the problem is the rise of third party payers for health care. He includes his own graph that implies that the trouble is people are paying too [...]
You've got that right. Friend had a motorcycle accident in Japan. In the ambulance, as they drove around for better than 2 hours, they were calling hospitals to try and find one that would accept an emergency patient. Number 9 on the list, 40 miles away, had room.
If the numbers on the right are off because of car crashes, murders, and obesity (which I believe to be a health related issue), then what about the numbers on the left? We are still paying over double the average health care cost these other nations are paying, and it seems that Mitchell's assertion that American costs have skyrocketed because people are not directly paying for medical costs has one flaw – if that is the case, then why do all those nations with universal health care pay less then America? How come their residents don't go crazy with the spending because of the thought that they are receiving care with other people's money?
That's EXACTLY what i said when I came across the graph when flipping thru the magazine. There's not a story or anything–just the graph (btw, the subscription was a gift).
See my point #3.
[focus on Andrew’s claim that Obama’s proposal will make things better because of its “cost-control measures.”]
Let's not focus on whether Andrew is right or wrong for a moment. The mere fact that he mentions "cost controls measures" is essentially – REPEAT essentially – alluding to Palin's Death Panel references. Granted. Sullivan uses whipped cream and Palin a sledgehammer to drive the point home.
Andy Babes. If you can't see the Unintended Consequences (hyper-liberal's favorite transgression) in the how and why of "cost control" then your infliction with the Soros Virus is in serious need of medical attention.
Andrew Sullivan, who posted the…chart, which he found in National Geographic, and…noted, with considerable justification, that this was evidence of an insane and inefficient healthcare system in America.
That’s very true on the skewed numbers as it comes to infant mortality. We count any birth as a baby if it moves on its own. In other countries that have better rates of infant mortality, like Cuba, they don't count it as a live birth if the infant doesn't live a week. We count it if they live a second.
The fact is, we spend more BECAUSE WE CAN!!!
Amen!
To fix the health INSURANCE problem, we need to do 3 things:
1) Allow across state line sale of health insurance
2) Tort reform
3) Minimize gov't mandates, let people buy what they need.
What is rarely brought up is that the U.S. subsidizes the rest of the world's health care systems with our pharmaceutical and biotech industries and military.
This is the real chart of the day as presented by EconomyPolitics. Good Start though. http://bit.ly/7A5nv3
Good take on the chart above, but can you really compare the two? Just look at the flat periods where out-of pocket is flat. Health Care as % of GDP seems flat too http://bit.ly/7A5nv3
Maybe the USA has more doctors and nurses and medical technicians for us to patronize and therefor spend a lot of money. Obama said we, that is the government, is spending too much on health care, as opposed to UAW wages and Democrat campaign contributions and GMAC bailouts and those silly signs that are put up at shovel ready projects, and non-shovel ready projects or to hire people with stimulus money to petition for more stimulus money..
"We also put a lot of money into trying to save people with extremely expensive problems that would probably not get such expensive care in other countries–but, this chart can't address that."
It is not the problems that are expensive, it is the solutions. This is an extremely important dichotomy. We lead the world in medical innovation because we are willing to spend so damn much on those problems. 30 years ago heart failure meant a cracked-open chest, months of recovery, a low chance of survival, and a million-dollar bill. Now we can usually detect and solve the same problems with angina, drug therapy, and arthroscopy, for much less.
Getting from here to there would have never happened if some panel of bureaucrats decided in 1975 that open-heart surgery was too expensive and carried too small a chance of survival to fund it. Most of the radical medical techniques that keep costs down in socialized-medicine countries are only allowed there because we take the first, most expensive steps.
I don't know what all is counted in the expenditures in the chart, but I can tell you that people do over use a lot of things where they are allowed to. Often in Britain it's hard to get quick assistance from an ambulance because they're called out for all kinds of small things because it's "free". The real answer to your question though is that people often don't have the choice. When the government can decide what you get and what you don't with little consideration as to your actual well-being, they can spend as little or as much as they want on you. Which is why there are higher rates of cancer deaths, longer waits for specialists, etc. They often aren't allowed to pay the costs themselves either if they want the service. The whole things is a bad bargain, because a bureaucrat is going to care infinitely less about you when you're just one of millions of people in their equation than you will about yourself. Is having an insurance company "paying for the oil changes" much better? It's by no means perfect, but it is better than giving control over to government.
The health care crisis is pertaining to the unfunded liabilities of the federal government which includes medicare and medicaid. Both programs are nothing more than the transfer of wealth, and yes we do have a problem with future commitments.
A more reasonable solution would be to get rid of medicare and medicaid altogether and let us keep those tax dollars and provide for our own healthcare.
The crisis he is talking about is the unfunded liabilities of our federal government, i.e. the promises of medicare and medicaid.
This is another big government program that needs abolished, but the republicans support it as much as the democrats.
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