Here’s some interesting OECD 2004 health data:
| | | | | US |
| Per capita health spending | $2,931 | $2,736 | $2,160 | $5,267 |
| Private share of spending | 30% | 24% | 17% | 55% |
| Life expectancy | 79.7 | 79.2 | 78.1 | 77.1 |
| Infant mortality/1000 | 5.2 | 4.5 | 5.0 | 6.8 |
We spend the most per capita on health care, more than half of which is privately funded. Yet, our life expectancy is lower and infant mortality higher than the countries shown.
In 2003 the administrative costs of Medicare were 2% of its total costs. In the same year, the administrative costs of private insurers were 13%.
Users of the Veterans Administration and Medicaid pay less for prescriptions than do users of private insurers because the VA and Medicaid bargain with the drug companies.
What’s wrong with this picture?
1 comment:
The US is the only one without a National Health Service funded from taxation, if my research is correct.
Canadians will trash their health service; Brits will trash their's (I did); so will the French, but overall their systems are better than America's - as your figures indicate.
The US healthcare model works brilliantly for (maybe) half the populace, but progressively fails the lower social classes.
Publicly funded health care presents a level playing field, which upsets the rich so they 'go private' anyway, but still contribute financially to the public sector through taxation.
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