Per person, the United States has a healthcare system organized such that it spends the most money per person of any country in the world. (the graph above shows results for many industrialized nations.1)
PLUS many people in the USA are financially ruined by healthcare expenses each year.2 In most of the countries listed in the graph, NO ONE goes broke because of healthcare expenses!
PLUS many people with sick kids work below their potential to qualify for Medicaid.
PLUS USA businesses suffer from being placed at a disadvantage in the global markets.
FOR ALL THIS COST AND PAIN ARE WE GETTING BETTER HEALTHCARE? No!
The USA has the highest infant mortality rate of all the nations listed in the graph except Greece.3
Our life expectancy is lower than all of the countries listed in the graph.4
Our only gain has been slightly better outcomes for a few cancers.
IS THE BEST HEALTHCARE IN THE USA THE MOST EXPENSIVE? No!
Some of the best healthcare in the USA comes from the Mayo Clinic, which is organized to provide excellent care at a price consistent with the cost of healthcare in, for example, Switzerland.
IS HEALTHCARE EQUALLY EXPENSIVE EVERYWHERE INTHE USA? No!
It varies by a factor of about 3. (See map above) In general, expensive does not equal good.5
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? No checks and balances in our healthcare system!
“Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later?” 5
Healthcare costs are most highly correlated to the number of hospital beds per capita, not health outcomes or the wealth of the community.5
WASTE AND GREED: The red bar in the graph measures the waste in the US system, which is produced by a poorly designed system and by greed. Based on healthcare costs and outcomes in other countries and in some parts in the US (see map above; click to get an interactive version), the quality of care should increase as we review our healthcare practices, cut waste and greed, and deliver care that works better. Our current system takes advantage of us when we are most vulnerable and is making some people very wealthy at our expense. A better system is possible!
HOW CAN WE GET OUT OF THIS MESS?
LEARN! Using the map below, I found that healthcare in my hometown is more expensive than elsewhere in the USA.
TALK! I talk to people about the problem, and especially those in healthcare. I distribute a flyer composed of the information you are reading here (email me at mchill@hillsmith.com and I will send you the pdf file).
WRITE! Your elected officials! Your newspaper! your hospital! Your medical clinic! I wrote a letter like this to our local newspaper:
*****
Healthcare Reform Starts Here!
Medical treatment in Boulder County per person is expensive6. We are more expensive than the Mayo Clinic, and more expensive than anywhere else in Colorado. Do better health results indicate that our healthcare dollars are well spent? Does our system, including our system for dealing with malpractice, provide incentives for keeping people well or incentives to prescribe more tests and procedures than experience indicates really works? Does our medical community and our Daily Camera newspaper provide relevant information and analysis? Are we truly serious about moving our precious country away from spending almost twice as much per person on healthcare as other industrialized nations while suffering with the highest infant mortality rate of these countries and obtaining only marginally better survival rates from some cancers? Supporting national healthcare reform is important but not enough. Let’s get to work here!
*****
BLOG! Here and elsewhere.
YES YOU CAN! Find out about your local healthcare system. If it is expensive, hold your local healthcare providers and hospitals accountable by calling them and writing letters to your newspaper. Other parts of the country are providing great care for less cost. They can, too. If they provide great care at a fair cost, make sure they know that the community appreciates their efforts.
YES WE CAN! The money in healthcare means powerful interests are at work. And many entities are national, such as insurance companies and hospital owners. We need to work with the federal government. Tell your federal Senators and Representatives to work for us on healthcare reform!
Sources
1 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934556.html, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
2 http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1 3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate 4https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
5http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande 6http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31390679/ns/health-health_care
PLUS many people in the USA are financially ruined by healthcare expenses each year.2 In most of the countries listed in the graph, NO ONE goes broke because of healthcare expenses!
PLUS many people with sick kids work below their potential to qualify for Medicaid.
PLUS USA businesses suffer from being placed at a disadvantage in the global markets.
FOR ALL THIS COST AND PAIN ARE WE GETTING BETTER HEALTHCARE? No!
The USA has the highest infant mortality rate of all the nations listed in the graph except Greece.3
Our life expectancy is lower than all of the countries listed in the graph.4
Our only gain has been slightly better outcomes for a few cancers.
IS THE BEST HEALTHCARE IN THE USA THE MOST EXPENSIVE? No!
Some of the best healthcare in the USA comes from the Mayo Clinic, which is organized to provide excellent care at a price consistent with the cost of healthcare in, for example, Switzerland.
IS HEALTHCARE EQUALLY EXPENSIVE EVERYWHERE INTHE USA? No!
It varies by a factor of about 3. (See map above) In general, expensive does not equal good.5
HOW DID THIS HAPPEN? No checks and balances in our healthcare system!
“Imagine that, instead of paying a contractor to pull a team together and keep them on track, you paid an electrician for every outlet he recommends, a plumber for every faucet, and a carpenter for every cabinet. Would you be surprised if you got a house with a thousand outlets, faucets, and cabinets, at three times the cost you expected, and the whole thing fell apart a couple of years later?” 5
Healthcare costs are most highly correlated to the number of hospital beds per capita, not health outcomes or the wealth of the community.5
WASTE AND GREED: The red bar in the graph measures the waste in the US system, which is produced by a poorly designed system and by greed. Based on healthcare costs and outcomes in other countries and in some parts in the US (see map above; click to get an interactive version), the quality of care should increase as we review our healthcare practices, cut waste and greed, and deliver care that works better. Our current system takes advantage of us when we are most vulnerable and is making some people very wealthy at our expense. A better system is possible!
HOW CAN WE GET OUT OF THIS MESS?
LEARN! Using the map below, I found that healthcare in my hometown is more expensive than elsewhere in the USA.
TALK! I talk to people about the problem, and especially those in healthcare. I distribute a flyer composed of the information you are reading here (email me at mchill@hillsmith.com and I will send you the pdf file).
WRITE! Your elected officials! Your newspaper! your hospital! Your medical clinic! I wrote a letter like this to our local newspaper:
*****
Healthcare Reform Starts Here!
Medical treatment in Boulder County per person is expensive6. We are more expensive than the Mayo Clinic, and more expensive than anywhere else in Colorado. Do better health results indicate that our healthcare dollars are well spent? Does our system, including our system for dealing with malpractice, provide incentives for keeping people well or incentives to prescribe more tests and procedures than experience indicates really works? Does our medical community and our Daily Camera newspaper provide relevant information and analysis? Are we truly serious about moving our precious country away from spending almost twice as much per person on healthcare as other industrialized nations while suffering with the highest infant mortality rate of these countries and obtaining only marginally better survival rates from some cancers? Supporting national healthcare reform is important but not enough. Let’s get to work here!
*****
BLOG! Here and elsewhere.
YES YOU CAN! Find out about your local healthcare system. If it is expensive, hold your local healthcare providers and hospitals accountable by calling them and writing letters to your newspaper. Other parts of the country are providing great care for less cost. They can, too. If they provide great care at a fair cost, make sure they know that the community appreciates their efforts.
YES WE CAN! The money in healthcare means powerful interests are at work. And many entities are national, such as insurance companies and hospital owners. We need to work with the federal government. Tell your federal Senators and Representatives to work for us on healthcare reform!
Sources
1 http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0934556.html, https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2004rank.html
2 http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/content/full/hlthaff.w5.63/DC1 3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate 4https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html
5http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/06/01/090601fa_fact_gawande 6http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31390679/ns/health-health_care
About Me
- AmericanForSanePublicPolicy
- Boulder, Colorado, United States
- Welcome to my blog (I can't believe I have a blog!) I realize you may wonder about my motives. I am one person trying to encourage constructive change in a system that is so important and so broken. I do not work in the medical field. I have accepted no financial contributions to support or influence my efforts. I believe in democracy and that people have to invest in the system for it to work well. I would love to have you join me in this effort.