Healthcare in the United States

[mmaestro]

Listening to the KUNM call in show right now, and it's on healthcare. I think, when you start hearing doctors talking about the US system, you realise just how badly broken it is. ER units that are nearly bankrupt because nearly half of those who go are never able to pay their bills, the fact that here in New Mexico, it costs every family with

Comments

[shanlon]

The US spends more per head of population on healthcare than almost any other nation in the world.

I heard the director of finance of one of the NHS's Foundation Trusts give a talk the other week. One of her slides was a plot of different nation's healthcare spends versus their life expectancy figures. The results were strange. Predictably there are lots of countries with tiny healthcare spends and low life expectancies and none with very high healthcare spends and low life expectancies. The more surprising bit was the high life expectancy / low healthcare spend portion of the plot - it was heavily populated. So the US residents have a similar life expectancy to Koreans, but pay vastly more for it.

I think the cost of uninsured people in a 'do-for-yourself' system is part of the reason for this. Another possible conclusion is that spending on health care directly is not the dominant factor in healthcare outcome - spending on Education (which the US does well in, I would imagine) and Social Services (which it does not so well in, I guess) are major contributors.

Wow, where did all that come from? Your post just caught my interest!

Cheers,
Steven

[itchyfidget]

Interesting, thanks :)

[mmaestro]

A stat I've heard from a number of different sources is that amongst the industrialised nations (and therefore, effectively, the world), the US healthcare system is in 33rd place. Given that they have the highest healthcare spend per person on the planet, that's pretty damning.
US education is spotty. The only way they maintain their high-tech industry is importing vast numbers of engineers and technology workers from overseas - essentially, people work subsidised by their government back home, then jump ship to the US taking their expertise with them. Not a good deal for the rest of the world - but I'm digressing.
I'd say that the problem comes down to a number of things - unhealthy living, which is to say driving everywhere, food loaded with corn syrup, and vast portions in restaurants, secondly the subsidising of the uninsured, and thirdly and, I expect, most importantly, the catastrophically high costs incurred by those who haven't had early intervention or well managed long term conditions. Lack of preventative care, and putting off doctors visits because of expense, is a major culprit here, I think.

Whatever the reason, it's pretty clear that the US system is terribly broken, and something serious needs done to fix it.