Wow– USA Spends Most Privately For HealthCare But Has Crappy Outcomes
So it’s like we’re having HealthCare Reform Tuesday here at RT. But the hits just keep on coming– check this out from Chris Bowers of Open Left:
Here are some eye-opening numbers on private and public health care spending in large, wealthy democracies from the OECD (PDF, page 42):
Health Care Spending As a % of GDP, 2003
Country Total Health Spending Public Spending Private Spending Canada 9.2% 6.5% 2.7% France 9.5% 6.5% 2.7% Germany 10.7% 8.0% 2.7% Italy 8.4% 6.3% 2.1% Japan 7.6% 6.0% 1.8% USA 13.9% 6.2% 6.7% The chart shows, first, that the total amount of public spending on health care in the United States is not very different from that in other wealthy, large democracies. Second, the chart shows that the United States is spending about 4% more of our national private income on health care than any other large, wealthy democracy. This increased spending has not led to increased public health, as the United States trails all of these countries in life expectancy.This means that the health care portion of the social safety net in the United States is not too small, but that the cost of health care in the United States is absurdly high. We have an appropriately sized social safety net on health care, we are just paying more for less. As such, the solution to our health care problems is not simply to root out “waste”–a long-term false solution of American political discourse–but to actively undercut the prices currently offered health care providers.
I was surprised that the amount of public spending is, on a relative scale, similar to other wealthy, large democracies. What was not surprising is that you and I are spending way more out of pocket for healthcare, in return for crappier outcomes.
Bowers suggests that to figure out what will cut healthcare costs, look at what policies healthcare providers oppose. Hint: it has the word “public option” in it.
Just tell our senators: ”I support the public health insurance option. ”
Here’s where to call:
Senator Kirsten Gillibrand
Phone: 202-224-4451
Senator Charles Schumer
Phone: 202-224-6542
Let us know what they say.
Related posts:
I beg to differ with your statement that our health care system has crappier outcomes. I recently had a colonoscopy and a cancerous polyp was detected early and removed. I had the test at the recommendation of my physician because I had never had one before. I had the test within 2 weeks of making the appointment and my private insurance covered the full cost.
Had I been a resident of Canada, and subjected to their socialized medicine, the median wait time for the procedure is up to 40 weeks, depending on location. That is completely unacceptable. The difference could easily mean the difference between life and death. Not only is the wait time in Canada dangerously long, the people having colonoscopys were people who already were screened with a fecal occult test indicating a higher risk of cancer. I did not have to submit to prescreening.
The British have similarly long wait times. Their government is dealing with the problem by utilizing guidelines that prevent some people from having the test. The last thing I want is government health care making decisions about whether or not I can receive diagnostic procedures and treatment.
Yes, we are spending too much on health care between government spending and private spending. The problem is too much government involvement which eliminates competition among insurance providers and the plethora of 3rd party payer utilization. What is needed is to restore cost accountability between providers and patients, combined with increased competition from decreased regulation.
Mike - without getting into the substance of your post on health care, I just wanted to applaud you for getting the test done and I’m glad to hear that they found the cancer at an early stage. Too many people avoid or put off the colon screenings. I hope you are feeling well and that there aren’t any further problems.
Thank you andrea, I’ve been urging many people I know to get a colonoscopy. Horror stories from the past about what an awful test it is are no loner true. With the drugs used now, a person will be lucky if he/she remembers any of the procedure and you are on your way home about 45 minutes after it is complete.
And I guarantee that you will forget where you eat lunch afterwards. Good drugs, that Phenergan and Versed combo!
Well I suppose on your insurance coverage. You personal situation aside (certainly glad for the outcome) but screening don’t start in some cases until you are 50. so hopefully nothing is happening anytime earlier.
Any links to the wait times in Canada or England?
Finally I learned a long time ago that there are multi reasons why things occur so your last sentence citing accountability, increased competition as means to help reform our health care system I don’t disagree with but to simply state that there is too much federal regulation as a cause - I need to understand where you are coming from. Please cite the specific examples of the too much federal regulation.
Just as a start, the current costly insurance system we have is the result of Federal regulations implemented in 1973. Regulations that mandate specific coverages are counterproductive from the standpoint of competition and force people to pay for coverage they may have very little need for. Insurance needs at the age of 20 are very different than insurance needs at the age of 60, yet there is very little choice when choosing a policy. Employer provided insurance compels everyone to have the same coverage within a group and also puts one in a perilous position if employed is terminated or changed. Insurance should be a decision strictly between the insured and the insurance company. That would increase competition, reduce costs and make it much less likely to lose coverage due to employment status.
This article, by Ron Paul, is very good at describing the problems and needed solutions for health care. You may not agree with all of his opinions, but he is a medical doctor and his economic analysis has been spot on.
It seems to me that Paul’s argument doesn’t take into account the idea of “shared risk” that is the underpinning of insurance. I won’t need Social Security until I retire (hopefully), but I’m paying for it now. And gladly so– I realize that my investment is helping others at a different stage of their lives, or in a less fortunate situation (like disability).
I’m glad to pay more in order to help everyone enjoy the same financial advantages I’ve been fortunate enough to be born into.
This story about spending and outcomes is an old one. I have a lot of issues with Mike’s story. In the UK and Canada there is a private system that competes with the public one, and many medical people work in both, so if there is a wait for treatment it might be that the doctor is out somewhere treating rich people. As far as Ron Paul is concerned I have heard him for a long time and I believe he has a screw loose. Anyway, is he going to give up his government health care?
It’s nice they found your cancer, but if you get a recurrence you might not have such great luck if your employer decides that your health insurance interferes with his profits. Or if you are a self-payer, if your insurance company decides to raise your rates or lower the coverage, or if they decide that colonoscopies shouldn’t be covered. Yeah, having some government official decide on your treatment is a bummer but at least he will do so on the basis of your medical condition and not on the accounting department’s estimation of the insurance company’s bottom line.
You talked about how the government in 1973 mandated coverage. Let’s see, what left-wing Democrat would that have been? Oh yeah, Nixon. I remember another Democratic programme for socialized medicine, and the AMA denounced it for years until it got passed anyway. Oh yeah, it was called Medicare. Hey Mike, want to give up Medicare? Maybe you’re young right now, but 65 will sneak up on you. It will hit me in three years.
What have I forgotten? Swine flu? What do you do if it gets really bad, maybe next fall, and there isn’t a health plan and millions of poor people haven’t gotten vaccinated and don’t have doctors to go to and can’t afford to buy medicines? You will have your perfect health coverage you pay so much for, and some illegal immigrant or maybe just your neighbour will come along and sneeze on you. You could move into a gated community and make everybody wash their hands, but what about the gardners and babysitters? Did you ever read The Masque of the Red Death by Poe?
Go into a doctor’s waiting room and look at all the advertising from drug companies. The doctor probably goes on little vacations every so often, that they pay for. Maybe he puts his money into the drug companies, nothing wrong with that if it doesn’t affect hus professional judgement, right? What about all the little ads you always see about PAD or whatever, you really need to go to your doctor and tell him why you need our medication, right? I hope you like all this stuff, because the cost probably gets added onto the price of your medications. Oh, but the cost of health care isn’t because of stuff like this, it’s because of frivolous lawsuits. Yeah I see ads for the ambulance-chasing lawyers too, but if I want to hear fairy tales I will stick to the one about the three bears.
Your first paragraph really has nothing substantive to reply to.
The points you bring up in your second paragraph were addressed in my prior comments.
Third paragraph - is there significance to the fact that Nixon was in the White House in ‘73? Dems and Repubs are basically two factions of the same party. They both support big, invasive government. Under the current system, giving up Medicare would be tantamount to cutting off my nose to spite my face. It does need to go, when the time is right and the entire system is overhauled. Your swine flu scare is nothing but BS, there is no guarantee that government will be able to meet the needs of a major epidemic. A free-market system will have the profit incentive to find cures and retain customers, government could view an epidemic as a cost savings measure for many programs. Government health care has to compete for dollars with warfare, welfare, highway funds and myriad other “priorities” - not to mention the broke Social Security System. There is no magic wand that enable government to provide unlimited access to health care.
I see nothing wrong with a drug company advertising. That does not amount to someone putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy their products. I do find major faults with the limitations the FDA puts on competition and the availability of potentially life saving drugs. Cutting a person out of the decision making process for medication is the antithesis of freedom.
BTW, nice job at avoiding most of the prior points I made and the information in Dr. Paul’s article. Next time, try responding to the points at hand instead of throwing up a bunch of red herring BS to deflect the argument.
“A free-market system will have the profit incentive to find cures and retain customers,” REALLY?
A “for profit” health care insurance system is just that, “for profit”. Money is made when claims are denied. The insurance companies are required, by law to provide the best profits for their share holders. Health care should be health driven, not profit driven. OUR CURRENT SYSTEM IS CORRUPT JUST BY IT’S VERY NATURE.
Drug companies advertising adds to the cost of the drugs, which in turn, drives up the cost of health care. If we had a single payer system, where we could negotiate drug prices, then let them advertise away.
For profit health care has been tried in the us and in important ways it is a dismal failure in spite of MIke’s claim.
1. Close to 50 million if not more are uninsured. Others are under insured.
2. For profit Health care has cost much more than government or public private combo systems.
They may be okay for the well off but for the poor medicare is lacking.
3.Big phara not only controls prices for prescription,impoverishing the leastwelloffandthe elderly for medicine, . they have bought and paid for our university system and turne it into a production facility for big profit drugs –complete with low paid graduate drones.. This has distorted basic research in science and undermined the foundations of much undergraduate education. In the longhorn it has been a detriment to US university education and to real medical research Our own U of R as it is in many fields is the seat and soul of this damage
Has anyone here actually taken a few minutes to read Ron Paul’s article on the health care system? It would be nice to see some comments and substantive response to what he says.
Mike in WNY asks is anybody here has actually read Ron Paul’s article on the health care system. Most of us who actually did read Ron Paul or listened to Ron Paul for any length of time eventually went away after awhile. I remember thousands of Ron Paul posters during the election campaign, but then how many people actually voted for Ron Paul? I liked him more as a Libertarian, back in the old days when his talking points provoked thought without the idea that anyone would actually try to implement them.
Mike doesn’t get the first paragraph, that people in the US spend more for health care and get less in return. This is because Mike gets what Mike wants (wow, he got a colonoscopy when he didn’t even know he wanted one, and it turned out he had cancer because of the colonoscopy). The people who give him his health care will now be after him every few years to go in for another one, and another one etc. But he will find that if he loses his private health insurance the doctors and colonoscopy people will suddenly lose all interest in him. He isn’t an individual to them, he is just a source of income. The insurance companies couldn’t care less about the health of anybody, except maybe their health and their immediate family’s health. All they care about is money, and they will never get enough. If you cost them more than you give them in profit, your health insurance is history.
Mike doesn’t much care about that probably, he is a conservative like the people that run the insurance company. They talk the idea of freedom a lot, but the only freedom they have any respect for is their own freedom. That’s why low-income conservatives are populists and high-income conservatives are libertarians. The insurance companies had all the incentive they needed to include more people and make more money for the last few years, and we have seen what they did with it. They denied more claims, cancelled more policies, did their best to make sure that the only people who got health insurance were people who would pay out more money to them and never get sick. This is compassionate conservatism. If the sick die more quickly they won’t suffer as much. Well, we will see what Mike says after he loses his insurance.
Mike sees nothing wrong with a drug company advertising its products. Neither do I, and when this all first started out I didn’t have anything against them advertising their products. But they have gone over the top, just as the banks went over the top and the various Wall Street people went over the top, because they didn’t know when to stop and no matter how much they got they wanted more. Between the lot of them, they bankrupted the American people by what they did after they convinced the government that they should be deregulated. The banks needed de-regulation to invest more, the drug companies needed de-regulation to do more research, the oil companies needed it to look for more oil. So they got their deregulation during the Clinton and Bush years, and now the people who demanded deregulation are trying to blame it all on the Democrats and the few Republicans who didn’t buy their snake oil.
They tried this during the last presidential campaign, and we have seen the result. Maybe the people will turn in righteous indignation on Obama and all the people who spent their money, and if his plans don’t work the Obama administration will deserve it. In the meantime the other side still doesn’t have anything to say other than cut taxes and drill here and build an atomic reactor (guess where they have their money invested!) and no socialized medicine. I did point out that we already have Medicare, which they called socialized medicine, but Mike in WNY apparently didn’t notice that part. Most people may have their problems with Medicare, but most people are probably happy to have it, just as they will be happy to have a new health care plan. Again, the Tories in the UK are always having to promise to keep the NHS even though many people have their doubts about how it is run.
Finally, if the private sector could come up with something better and cheaper than what Obama is proposing, I would be all in favour, but if you hold your breath waiting, you will have definite health problems.
I want to expand the number of stars one can get– 5 just doesn’t seem enough for this comment. You clearly call out the “I got mine, you get what’s left over.” philosophy. Thanks.
[...] - We are paying more and getting less for Health Care. Which is fine with the private insurers who are working to kill key health care [...]