The OECD has been publishing statistics on health care and its costs for years. The latest report is for 2004. Here's how we compare to Canada, France, Australia and Britain.
Health Care Spending per Person
United States $6102
Canada 3165
France 3159
Australia 3120
Britain 2508
Life Expectancy in Years
United States 77.5
Canada 79.9
France 80.3
Australia 80.6
Britain 78.5
Infant Mortality per 1000 births
United States 6.9
Canada 5.3
France 3.9
Australia 4.7
Britain 5.1
So, we spend more but die earlier and are more likely to have stillbirths. Is there something wrong with this picture? Each of the other countries has adopted a single-payer health insurance system. We have not. Could our higher costs be a function of the fact that we have an almost myriad number of health insurance providers?
1 comment:
I just finished reading the book, The Great White Lie; How America's Hospitals Betray Our Trust and Endanger Our Lives by Walt Bogdanich. It was written in 1991 but still interesting. Medicare fraud is so rampant in US that it is staggering and Reagan dissolved the agencies that used to police it. The US is not very high in the list of least corrupted governments so I doubt the single payer system would work well here. The countries you named all have a higher honesty rank also.
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