Jeff Fink wrote:
With the system the way it is in the US, if you need an operation for
something you can get it quickly.
Hmm... this looks like the old "We pay a lot but we have better care"
argument. The United States has, if I recall correctly, the most
expensive health care system in the world.
Let's cut the chase. Does this horribly expensive health care actually
benefit us? How long do people live in the United States live? Check
out the Wiki page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
Wiki lists the life expectancies a couple different ways. Their first
list is taken from the "made in the USA" CIA world factbook; it lists
the United States as #29 in life expectancy among the countries of the
world.
According to the United Nations list, which they show later on the page,
the United States ranks #38, just behind Cuba.
Not so hot, eh?
Here's the CIA list, down to and including the United States:
Rank Country Life expectancy at birth
---- ------- ------------------------
1 Andorra 83.52
2 Japan 82.02
3 San Marino 81.8
3 Singapore 81.8
5 Sweden 80.63
6 Australia 80.62
6 Switzerland 80.62
8 France (metropolitan) 80.59
9 Iceland 80.43
10 Canada 80.34
11 Italy 79.94
12 Monaco 79.82
13 Liechtenstein 79.81
14 Spain 79.78
14 Norway 79.78
14 Israel 79.78
17 Greece 79.38
18 Austria 79.21
19 Malta 79.15
20 Netherlands 79.11
21 Luxembourg 79.03
22 New Zealand 78.96
23 Germany 78.95
24 Belgium 78.92
25 United Kingdom 78.7
26 Finland 78.66
27 Jordan 78.55
28 Bosnia and Herzegovina 78.17
29 United States 78
You can no doubt quibble with some of the numbers, and you can no doubt
lay a lot of the blame at the door of McDonalds rather than the HMO's,
but none the less the overall picture is pretty clear: We're not
getting what we pay for here.
Incidentally, while a lot of the difference in life expectancies is due
to heart disease (McDonalds-related deaths) most of the rest is probably
due to differences in infant mortality. That's another area where, in
the United States, we pay a fortune and don't get much in return.
Again, Wiki lists the numbers provided by the U.N. and by the CIA:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate_(2005)
I won't reproduce the list here, but I will note that, according to the
CIA, 42 countries, including Cuba, have lower infant mortality rates
than the United States.
