The graph begins to make a little more sense if one replaces the term "healthcare" with a more reality-representing term: "sickcare".
Healthy people don't need to spend a lot of money on their health. This doesn't explain it all, but the relationship begins to become more intuitive when viewed this way: an unhealthy (but wealthy enough to spend a lot of money) population will spend more on sickcare, and will have worse health outcomes than healthier populations. The US is one of the most obese nations on this chart. I recall reading some statistic that said if we returned to 1975 obesity levels we could reduce government health spending by 400 billion annually. Of course obesity is just one aspect of many that might lead to poor health and shorter life expectancy in the US. (Insufficient preventative care, subsidized cheap and unhealthy foods, high stress jobs with little vacation, the opioid epidemic, prevalence of dysfunctional schools, etc.) And all this is before exploring any of the many reasons we pay high costs for the sickcare we get (rationing of licensed doctors and treatment facilities, prohibitions on reimporting cheaply exported drugs, administrative and insurance overheads, lack of price transparency, emergency rooms as default care facilities for those who can't afford doctor appointments, medical malpractice insurance and high rates of lawsuits, multi-billion dollar cost of new drug development, etc.) A lot has to be fixed. Unfortunately, the root of the problem may stem from a misalignment of objectives. In the same way private prisons work to incarcerate more prisoners, for-profit sickcare is discouraged from working towards a healthier population (which doesn't need as much of their services). If we could design a reward system where the decision makers in power were rewarded based on the health and well-being of the population as a whole, I think things would look very different. Jason On Thu, Jul 14, 2022, 8:45 AM Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi Terren, > > You are right, I know that. I have the impression that a bad health > situation can ruin people in the US. I have heard of stories of people > refusing to call an ambulance after a serious accident, for fear of the > bill. I think that another country were this is the case is South Korea. A > colleague told me that it is common there for people there to invest in a > second home, to use it to pay for the health bill in case they get cancer > or something serious like that. > > I guess what perplexes is that people seem to be more or less ok with > this, when there is overwhelming evidence that a better systems is possible. > > Telmo > > Am Do, 14. Jul 2022, um 14:34, schrieb Terren Suydam: > > Hi Telmo, > > I’d want to know how they adjust for price differences between countries, > as that could be a subtle way to introduce bias. But as an American and > assuming the above is kosher, it doesn’t surprise me at all. Health care > here is a worst case scenario. It’s the result of decades of anti > competitive practices and perverse incentives. But you knew that! > > Terren > > On Thu, Jul 14, 2022 at 8:13 AM Telmo Menezes <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > I am curious about what Americans in this list think about this: > https://i.redd.it/qrjgb2aakhb91.jpg > > > > Telmo > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/724092fd-48a5-44ed-a3c5-7ec8aa38c3fe%40www.fastmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/724092fd-48a5-44ed-a3c5-7ec8aa38c3fe%40www.fastmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAMy3ZA9uK_y2aZUHhe3Tv%3D1rg2u4YR5yP6KjqQJppFkiuiK2aA%40mail.gmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/CAMy3ZA9uK_y2aZUHhe3Tv%3D1rg2u4YR5yP6KjqQJppFkiuiK2aA%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to [email protected]. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/60eabc69-a0cc-4dec-91ce-1871e6d0f4cf%40www.fastmail.com > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/60eabc69-a0cc-4dec-91ce-1871e6d0f4cf%40www.fastmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. 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