U.S. Health Spending: One of These Things Not Like Others, Wall Street Journal, 23 July 2013
"Here’s a graph of health-care expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product for the 34 member nations of the OECD between 1980 and 2012. As you can see, there’s one country whose expenditure begins to distinguish itself from all the others — the U.S."
We spend a lot, but we don't get a lot:
"Of 17 high-income countries studied by the National Institutes of Health in 2013, the United States was at or near the bottom in infant mortality, heart and lung disease, sexually transmitted infections, adolescent pregnancies, injuries, homicides, and rates of disability. Together, such issues place the U.S. at the bottom of the list for life expectancy.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the United States spent more on health care per capita ($8,608), and more on health care as percentage of its GDP (17.9%), than any other nation in 2011. The Commonwealth Fund ranked the United States last in the quality of health care among similar countries, and notes U.S. care costs the most."
2 comments:
This can't be right. Our Congressional Representatives in Washington say we have the best healthcare system in the world.
Oh, are they talking about us or the people and corporations who profit from our healthcare system? It makes me ill thinking about it. Is Congress considered a preexisting condition?
Sorry about being cynical.
It is amazing to me how the myth that the US has the best healthcare system in the world persists. So many people say that!
I think you're right. I think there's a fear by people on the receiving end of all this spending ... that Americans will wake up. Thus the need to fuel the myth.
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