Healthcare Education and Q&A Thread

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by djnemo65

Thanks for lending us your expertise Schneed. It is often remarked that the United States spends more per person than any other country in the world on healthcare yet gets less, consistently ranking near the bottom of major industrialized countries in independent international surveys. First of all, do you think these rankings are fair? Second, do you think it would be possible to expand coverage to the unininsured without substantially increasing taxes or cutting other government spending? It seems that other countries are able to get more coverage for considerably less money.

Finally, I know that you have been critical of Obama's healthcare proposals in the past. Does this mean you advocate the status quo? If not, what specific changes would you like to see implemented by congress?

Cost-wise, a few things in particular separate us from other countries:

Malpractice
Other countries don't allow civil suits to result in large payments to victims of malpractice. Hence our docs pay a ton more in malpractice premiums than do docs in other countries.

Cost of Living
Cost of living in the US is way higher than most industrialized nations. Since healthcare is so labor-intensive, it is unfair to compare per-capita spending on healthcare from one country to another without adjusting for cost of living or wage index.

I'd like to see the surveys you're speaking to be able to comment further as to their fairness. I'd be particularly interested to see how they're determining that we "get less." Does that mean we have shorter lifespans? How the heck do you measure that?

We have shorter lifespans because we're fat, not because our healthcare sucks!