Some basics!

[pyat]

Image posted by cargoweasel, detailing the average cost, annually, per person of public and private healthcare spending in various nations, tied to life expectancy. The line thickness represents the average number of doctor visits. It indicates that the U.S. has a higher relative expenditure, and that Americans see the doctor less often than many countries with socialized healthcare.

Some basic points!

1. Medicine is very expensive. It costs the taxpayers a lot of money.
2. For-profit provision of medical care is not less expensive.
3. Private insurance companies have a duty to their shareholders to increase profits every year.
4. The easiest way to increase profits are to increase rates and decrease service.
5. YOU will need medical care, inevitably.
6. The older you get, the more care you will need.
7. The more care you need, the more your insurance costs.
8. It will never cost less, even if you never get sick and die instantly in an accident. (See point 3.)

I've seen the question, "Why should my tax dollars pay for someone else's unhealthy lifestyle?"

It is a valid question, but it should also be asked of private insurance. When you buy into private insurance, you are also helping pay for smokers, overeaters, closet alcoholics, people who live in polluted cities, sickly asthmatic children, and old people who are never, ever, ever going to get better.

Socialized healthcare has the advantage of "getting it at cost," essentially. It also removes much of the detritus of the insurance structure - transcriptionists, coders, case workers, financial consultants, sales people, resellers, brokers etc. There also an enconomy of scale to consider. 30 million people are insured more cheaply, per person, than 300 people, or 3000.

Comments

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

You're being far too sensible about this. I've come to the conclusion that many americans would live under a bridge in a cardboard box if they knew for a fact that the guy under the next bridge over didn't have a cardboard box.

[sixteenbynine.livejournal.com]

And that there was mad money to be made on the cardboard box market because of that.

[neutopian.livejournal.com]

Americans would also suppose that the bridge spontaneously sprouted from the earth, fertilized by the vital fluids of the free market, but the private sector could have made them a BETTER bridge under which to live in their cardboard box for free.

[shurhaian.livejournal.com]

It's far from perfect, of course - Nova Scotia, for one, has a massive problem with overwrought bureaucracy sucking down health care dollars and reducing the efficiency - but yes, you have many valid points. Bravo.

Pity that all these rational arguments have less emotional impact than wild claims that public health care will lead inexorably to mandatory euthanasia.

[zenten.livejournal.com]

You forgot the bit about state governments having to bail out hospitals who are hemorrhaging money because they have to by law provide a certain amount of expensive emergency care to people who simply can't pay, making the total amount spent by the various levels of government for their health care comparable to what countries with socialized medicine spend.

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

This has lead to some interesting pilot programs in the US healthcare world too. I work for a "health system" which owns a couple of hospitals and a lot of other medical services and one of the things we've been trying is, essentially, a preventative health program to keep people out of our Emergency Rooms. Limited to our own pool of employees and a few local unions, if you have diabetes or a high risk of heart disease, you essentially get free check ups, labwork, lifestyle counciling and cheap meds and testing supplies because frankly, all of those services are still cheaper than dealing with a preventable health crisis at the ER that'll need to be written off.

[(Anonymous)]

At first I was looking at it and going "Okay, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada...where's the US?" Then I scrolled up a bit.

Can I just say, holy f-ing shit? I knew the US's healthcare expenditure was ridiculous, but it's jolting (again) to see it in graph form.

[quoting-mungo.livejournal.com]

I note that our line is the same thickness as the US line. This I find interesting.

Viva la Suecia? ;)


-Alexandra

[lee-in-limbo.livejournal.com]

Agreeing with another poster; seeing it in graph form is startling, which I suppose is the point. Also, seeing how many industrialized nations have some form of universal health care is highly illuminating, as compared to those that don't. It would be funny if it weren't scary how dire the US heath care situation looks.

My wife, a former New Yorker, has an almost pathological fear of doctors, and it's not a wonder why. With that kind of profit margin on the line, it would be hard to imagine getting health care that didn't feel like an institutionalized high-stakes craps game.

But! But! But!

[thebitterguy]

Death panels!

[mmsword.livejournal.com]

Strangely enough, this chart really makes me want to investigate how South Korea does healthcare as it seems like they're getting the best ratio of money spent to life expectancy.