Issues: Universal Health Care

In this post, I have provided some additional material to supplement Impatient Sufferance’s ongoing discussion on the present and future of America’s struggling health care system. The data below was culled from the World Health Organization’s public database, the WHO Statistical Information System’s World Health Statistics 2007.

Before I continue into an analysis of the data, a brief word on methodology. The countries included in the set below were selected based on their characterization as developed, post-industrial nations, with similar political (democratic), productive and liberal-economic qualities as the United States (with the exception of Cuba). These nations were selected, not with the intention of empirically determining the world’s most efficient system (i.e. the golden ratio of private to government health care spending), but, rather, to demonstrate the inefficiency of the United States’ health care system, as compared to sovereignties of similar stature.

A few words on the chart itself:

1. Mean HALE represents the averaged Healthy Adult Life Expectancy of both men and women. The chart has been sorted based on this initial metric.
2. Govt % Health Care Spending refers to the percentage of a nation’s total health care expenditure paid for by the government. (For example: Sweden’s government pays for nearly 85% of all health care costs, while the United States’ government handles only 45%).
3. Per Capita $$ Govt HC Spending describes the actual amount, per person, that the government spends on health care. (For example, for each individual in Canada, the government has allotted $2,121 for health care costs. In the United States, the government spends $2,725 per person, several hundred more than their Canadian peers.)
4. Total Per Capita HC Spending is a simple calculation (Per Capita $$ Govt HC Spending/Govt% Health Care Spending) which determines the total amount spent, per individual, on health care (government-spending + private costs). (For Example: The total yearly health care cost for a single Australian is $3,121. For an American, a whopping $6,095!)

I, personally, do not believe that these statistics require extended analysis. The American individual enjoys a shorter healthy life than their Western European, Japanese and Israeli counterparts. Under the current system, the American pays far more out of pocket (total spending – government spending) than any other nation. Furthermore, since the percentage of government spending on health care as a percentage of total spending is so low in the United States (44.7%) and the total individual expenditure so high ($6,095), one can only consider the market-oriented, American health care system wholly inefficient, particularly if efficiency is determined by a system’s ability to maintain a long, healthy life for its constituents at the least cost.

This data is not an indictment of the overall quality of health care received in the United States; as the son of a doctor, I have seen, firsthand, the commitment demonstrated by (most of) our health professionals. Rather, it is a condemnation of our bungling, wasteful health care system, hindered by both corporate and bureaucratic excesses. Perhaps we, as a nation, should take cues from our international peers, such as the Israelis and the Japanese, and realize that publicly-funded policies which promote and support social well-being can expeditiously produce a healthy citizenry and, therefore, that similar socialized-policies should not be cast as a monstrous affront, a bogeyman, nor vehemently and undeservedly condemned, based on twisted ideology, as unrealistic and/or inefficient. According to the WHO, central governments can act efficiently (high care, low cost) in the provision of vital services.

America is old enough now to stop believing in the bogeyman.