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Originally Posted by willravel
I couldn't agree more. 18,000 people a year die because they don't have health coverage. How many die each year from terrorism?
According to this page, about 20% of the average French gross salary goes into the incredible system they have, which is the most expensive of all social medical programs in the world. Germany is about 13%, according to this site. This lists the average annual rates for people of different ages under the UK's NHS. Note that even at NHS's most expensive, it's only $220 per month, which is probably a lot less than the national average in the US. |
Well I can tell you that my current premium for a PPO plan for me and my family is a lot more than that. In fact my portion is about $250/mo and my employer covers 100% of my coverage and 50% of the family, so you can figure the total plan cost is probably $600 or so. This is a must-pay cost and I don't exactly have the ability to do a lot of shopping around. This means that I view this expense no differently than if it were taken by the government.
According to the
WHO's international health statistics, here are some intersting points:
Per capita total expenditure on health (% of GDP in parenthesis) and the percentage that is paid through government expenditure:
Australia: $3,123 (9.6%) - 67.5% government
Canada: $3,038 (9.8%) - 69.8% government
France: $3,464 (10.5%) - 78.4% government
Germany: $3,521 (10.6%) - 76.9% government
India: $31 (5.0%) - 17.3% government
Italy: $2,580 (8.7%) - 75.1% government
Japan: $2,823 (7.8%) - 81.3% government
New Zealand: $2,040 (8.4%) - 77.4% government
Norway: $5,405 (9.7%) - 83.5% government
Russia: $245 (6.0%) - 61.3% government
Sweden: $3,532 (9.1%) - 84.9% government
United Kingdom: $2,900 (8.1%) - 86.3% government
United States: $6,096 (
15.4%) - 44.7% government
Why are we Americans, supposed masters of getting the best deal, so willing to pay so much for so little? 15.4% of our GDP! That's 50% more than most any other developed nation, and even then a huge swathe of people are left with inadequate care. Only one nation in the world (Tuvalu, at 16.6%) spends more. I have no problem spending the money that needs to be spent, but please can we get some better value for our money? One thing I don't know about this statistic is whether it includes only money actually spent on health care, or all the money spent on the organizations that pay for the health care (i.e. does it only count money paid to doctors, or all the cost of premiums)? If the former (which I suspect) then we really pay a lot more on top of our 15.4% to support the insurance industry.
When I hear that we can't afford it, I cringe. France has a fine system of health care, and does it for 2/3 the cost of our system and covers everyone in the country to boot. I know there is not a system in the world that is without issues, but many of these countries routinely are rated as providing better health care across the board than the average care in the United States, and here many people can't even get that.