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Originally Posted by willravel
I do see what you're saying, and I'll readily admit I don't have access to the raw data of the study, but the discrepancy isn't small. We're not off by 1%, which is a lot considering the US GDP is $13,130,000,000,000. I don't think that one can simply say, "there is a margin of error to explain the difference between health care costs in the US and France", do you?
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I don't know if it is or if it is not, simply a margin of error. I would need to see what was used to arrive at their numbers. You could be 100% correct in your conclusion, all I have stated is that we need to be careful using those numbers until we understand them. If we make major policy decisions based on faulty analysis our policy decisions will be faulty. Here is a link to demographic data on France, the same link can lead you to the same type of data on the US:
http://education.yahoo.com/reference...7jmSjuYxm4ecYF
The US has a higher birth rate per 1000.
The US has a higher immigration rate per 1000 ( by a factor of 5)
The US has a lower death rate per 1000, France has a higher average age.
The US has more males to females than France.
The US population growth rate is 3 times higher than France.
21% of the US population is 14 or less compared to 18% in France. A higher percentage of working people means more people paying taxes to support the French medical insurance system today, what going to happen in the long-term, given a low birth rate, aging population and low immigration?
France has a better infant mortality rate but the US has a higher birth rate. (It would be interesting to see what those numbers would be adjusting for immigration)
The US has a 50% higher ratio of people with HIV/AIDS.
Even with the above data we are just touching the tip of the iceberg and all of these factors may have an impact on per capita health care spending and spending as a % of GDP, yet you and others make judgments without questions or any real analysis.