Well, I guess you have your own private set of statistics to refer to. I was referring to the assessment of the likes of the National Academy of Science, which in its brief on the topic says the following:
The bottom line is that it can be fixed, and we know how to fix it. All we need to do is look at systems which are more successful.
The fact is that, unlike the other developed countries, unless the US does something to bring its system up to international standards, the cost of healthcare will exceed 25% of GDP within 2-3 decades.
One more excerpt from the IOM report for which the brief may be found here:
iom.edu/Reports/2013/US-Health-in-International-Perspective-Shorter-Lives-Poorer-Health/Report-Brief010913.aspx
The problems are related to poverty, which is why talking about it is not irrelevant to this thread.
I would agree that a lot of health problems in the U.S. are related to poverty. Not many countries allow people with no skills, preexisting health problems, a lifetime of poor nutrition and who have abused antibiotics or other powerful medications and no legal way to make a living, into their countries.
Outcomes are skewed by poverty, by illegal immigration, but also by the average age of the population and the way countries count results. Infant mortality, for example, is counted differently here than it is in Europe, giving us higher numbers per actual infant death.
Life expectancy tells one nothing because life expectancy is statistically higher the older the population is. Most developed countries have older populations than does the U.S.; some much older.
I have yet to see anybody establish empirically that the government can run a healthcare system more efficiently than insurance companies do. After all, the government only manages one system (VA) but hires insurance companies to administer the rest of them.
One way or another, administration gets paid for. Just because it may be governmental doesn’t make it cheaper or more efficient.
There are a lot of reasons why healthcare is more expensive here than in other places. One is access to quality care which, until now, has been available to most. Another is the fact that doctors here earn a lot more. (about double what it is in Australia) And unlike in the countries that pay for medical education (which isn’t counted) our doctors come out of medical school owing a lot of money that they have to pay with after-tax dollars. Now maybe it would be best if doctors in this country were forced by the government to work for half of what they work for now, but one doubts it.
And the number of doctors per capita in the U.S. is lower than it is in most developed countries. That, of course, allows them (or the organizations they work for) to charge more than they would otherwise. But medical education here is controlled by the medical schools, none of which has any incentive to expand their numbers (they lose money on med schools and make it up in other areas).
The article you cited points out that the U.S. is at the top in some medical areas. Among them are cancer, blood pressure-related conditions, cholesterol related conditions and others. Its “medical outcomes” are skewed by things that aren’t really medical issues at all, but social issues; homicides, suicides, HIV, teen pregnancy. And some of those are also age-related. There are a lot more homicides in a country with low average age (look at Mexico, for instance) than in a country with an aging population. Crimes of all kinds drop off with age. And, of course, teen pregnancy requires teens.
And, of course, “outcomes” have to be “medical” to be counted. In France, one pays up front for care then bills the government for reimbursement. So, if a person is having chest pain, doesn’t go to the doctor because of that “up front” requirement, and dies, he/she is not in the statistics as a “medical outcome” because he/she never had medical care to begin with.
But I’ll admit that your goal (governmental medicine) is likely to happen here eventually, because Obamacare will probably wreck the system with which 80% of people were previously satisfied. The ensuing crisis will undoubtedly cause people to turn to other measures in desperation. Obama wanted full socialized medicine to begin with, and many think Obamacare was designed to fail in order to socialize medicine entirely. And, of course, taxes will have to increase in order to pay for it. Taxes are much higher in most European states (the ones that don’t profit from North Sea petrodollars, but even some that do) than they are here, and large social programs are the reason. (Of them all, only Britain could imaginably defend itself against even a third rate power) But, given the birth crises in those countries, those programs are not likely to last more than two or three more decades. When, in 2040, Italy’s population is (as predicted) about half what it is now, they won’t even be able to afford keeping the highways and electric lines repaired.
Obamacare is now estimated to have a net cost of 1.9 trillion dollars over the next ten years. Many believe that’s conservative, but nobody thinks it will be less. And 30 million will still not be covered. Nobody should doubt the cost of full socialized medicine that covers that additional 30 million will be greater. And it might not be just in money. Those same countries have terribly low birth rates, and can anybody truly think that governmental appropriation of family funds is not one of the reasons for it?
relevance?