The US healthcare debate is baffling. Look at his data (form the Guardian on Saturday):
| How they compare | In the US | In England | Source |
| Healthcare spending in 2004 as a percentage of GDP, per capita | 16.0% | 8.3% | 1 |
| Life expectancy in 2000 | 77 | 78 | 2 |
| Average annual rate of growth in real healthcare spending per capita, 1994-2004 | 3.70% | 4.20% | 1 |
| Number of acute care hospital beds per 1,000 people in 2004 | 2.8 | 3.6 | 1 |
| Average length of stay for acute care in 2004 | 5.6% | 3.6% | 1 |
| Under 5 mortality rate (probability of dying by age 5 per 1,000 live births) | 9 | 6 | 2 |
| Notes re sources: | 1 = NHS using WHO date | ||
| 2 = Commonwealth Fund |
What is there to debate? The facts are glaringly obvious: our health system costs half that of the US and produces overall better outcomes. The state is simply vastly more efficient — by such a massive margin you wonder what the issue might even be.
Unless, like the Conservatives here who want to abolish the NHS (and I suspect most do) because you want to profit at the expense of misfortune.
And whose misfortune would they profit from? Glaringly obviously the poorest in the community: if you are going to double the cost of healthcare in the UK, a the private sector would do, and spend no more of GDP on it there is only one possible outcome: a lot of people will go without care. And they will be those who can’t pay, as is true in the States.
Is that what the Conservatives want? It seems so because that is what their MPs are supporting.
As Theresa May called them when she was Conservative Party chairman: they really are the Nasty Party.
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Your table does not tell the whole story in that much of the US health care spending is already done by Government Healthcare:
(NHE = National Healthcare expenditure)
– NHE grew 6.1% to $2.2 trillion in 2007, or $7,421 per person, and accounted for 16.2% of Gross Domestic Product.
– Medicare spending grew 7.2% to $431 billion in 2007, or 19 percent of total NHE.
– Medicaid spending grew 6.4% to $329 billion in 2007, or 15 percent of total NHE.
– Private spending grew 5.8% to $1.2 trillion in 2007, or 54 percent of total NHE.
– At the aggregate level in 2007, businesses (25 percent), households (31 percent), other private sponsors (4 percent), and governments (40 percent) paid for about the same share of health services and supplies as they did in 2006.
So, Government Medicare and Medicaid spending totaled 34% of all US healthcare spending. Then there are other programs such as the Veteran’s Administration spending more Government money. The Government stat above states 40%.
You states do not tell who is spending the money more efficiently.
———————
A couple reason why the UK spends less is that:
1. The UK does not use the latest drugs and does not pay the full price of the development and testing of new drugs. – The US moving to a similar system will disrupt drug prices around the world as the drug companies will have to shift costs elsewhere.
2. The UK does not pay high salaries to its doctors medical staff. (Yes, the salaries are high, but given the amount of training and time required to become a doctor, not exactly. Otherwise everyone would be doing it right?) The UK has made up for a lack of people wanting to become doctors by poaching doctors and nurses from the third world. – There are not enough doctors and nurses on Earth to meet a similar demand if created in the US.
Fred
1) Wrong – wake up – many drug companies are British
2) What a load of rubbish: we’re producing more doctors and nurses than we need
Your excuses are lame
Richard