Where does America rank in healthcare quality and efficiency?

The assault on healthcare reform has begun. For the next three years, insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, HMOs and other halthcare profiteers will spend billions in advertising and more billions in lobbying to convince us that we have the BEST healthcare system in the world and that reform will ruin our system. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have claimed a reputation for quality healthcare by deceit. We are not the best in the world; we are 37th on the list behind most EU countries with government-run simgle-payer universal healthcare.

Single-payer government-managed healthcare is the only way to bring costs down. I have worked in several hospitals and clinics while in college and shortly after, so I am not speaking in ignorance.

The real problem is that insurance companies must make a profit, and to do so, they must up the premiums and deny as many claims as possible. When care is denied, it results in loss of life or loss of quality of life. Further, most insurance companies do not pay claims for preventive healthcare. They wait until the problem becomes chronic or acute, when it is too late and when the costs for healthcare go up astronomically.

The old standby fear-mongering that “a government bureaucrat will decide your healthcare” can easily be countered with the fact that WE ALREADY HAVE BUREAUCRATS DECIDING OUR HEALTHCARE — INSURANCE COMPANY BUREAUCRATS — and they do not have our best interests at heart, but rather the health of the company.

If the government provides the same healthcare as all Federal employees have available to them, that is an improvement, but not the best we can do. A better solution is for the government to put us all on the same basic coverage as Medicaid, but Federally run rather than State run. The premiums for those not indigent would be lower and the defaults for emergency care of indigent would be significantly less. It would profit us in the long run by having a healthier populace but, more important to business, a healthier workforce and less overhead to figure in the cost of labor for Big Business.

This would make us far more competitive with foreign labor (with the exception of the third world countries who treat their workers and citizens as expendable resources). Real reform in healthcare will only be possible with some government control over cost. I do not believe the value of a person’s life or quality of life should be sacrificed to the bottom line.

Arius (from another blog) said:
France, Germany, and Great Britain all have nationalized health care – and they ALL spend less per capita than we do. Stick THAT in your stethoscope and listen to it.

There is a theory that competition will bring prices down. So far it has not. There is more price-fixing among medical practices, pharmaceutical companies and HMOs than there is real competition that benefits the consumer. Competition does not guarantee a low price. Examples of how government cost regulation kept prices low is when they controlled milk prices when I was young. When the regulation ended, prices went up astronomically. And then there is the breakup of Ma Belle that was promised to lower our phone bills and improve our service than’s to competition. Well, our phone bills went up immediately after the break-up and the service went down, and this has been going on for a while now. Even the introduction of the mobile phone did not improve long-distance prices for land-line service, which is why most folks use a mobile phone for long distance calls, and many (especially the young) only have a mobile phone.

Arius is right. The superiority of our healthcare is a myth. Here is a good list of resources regarding world health statistics: http://search.who.int/search?ie=utf8&si … itesearch=

The following table shows where the US ranks in comparison to other countries in terms of healthcare systems and their efficiency (infant mortality, etc.). The US in 37, behind virtually every EU country and Canada.

So, don’t pretend that we are so superior to everyone else. We are not. For the U.S. to be 37th in the world is shameful given the resources that we have.

Table 1. Overall efficiency in all WHO member states
                         [Country names shortened by blogger]

1	France	96	Fiji
2	Italy	97	Benin
3	San Marino	98	Nauru
4	Andorra	99	Romania
5	Malta	100	St. Kitts & Nevis
6	Singapore	101	Moldova
7	Spain	102	Bulgaria
8	Oman	103	Iraq
9	Austria	104	Armenia
10	Japan	105	Latvia
11	Norway	106	Yugoslavia
12	Portugal	107	Cook Islands
13	Monaco	108	Syria
14	Greece	109	Azerbaijan
15	Iceland	110	Suriname
16	Luxembourg	111	Ecuador
17	Netherlands	112	India
18	U.K.	113	Cape  Verde
19	Ireland	114	Georgia
20	Switzerland	115	El Salvador
21	Belgium	116	Tonga
22	Colombia	117	Uzbekistan
23	Sweden	118	Comoros
24	Cyprus	119	Samoa
25	Germany	120	Yemen
26	Saudi Arabia	121	Niue
27	U.A.E.	122	Pakistan
28	Israel	123	Micronesia
29	Morocco	124	Bhutan
30	Canada	125	Brazil
31	Finland	126	Bolivia
32	Australia	127	Vanuatu
33	Chile	128	Guyana
34	Denmark	129	Peru
35	Dominica	130	Russia
36	Costa Rica	131	Honduras
37	U.S.A.	132	Burkina Faso
38	Slovenia	133	Sao Tome &  Principe
39	Cuba	134	Sudan
40	Brunei Darussalam	135	Ghana
41	New Zealand	136	Tuvalu
42	Bahrain	137	Côte  d’Ivoire
43	Croatia	138	Haiti
44	Qatar	139	Gabon
45	Kuwait	140	Kenya
46	Barbados	141	Marshall Islands
47	Thailand	142	Kiribati
48	Czech Republic	143	Burundi
49	Malaysia	144	China
50	Poland	145	Mongolia
51	Dominican Republic	146	Gambia
52	Tunisia	147	Maldives
53	Jamaica	148	Papua New Guinea
54	Venezuela	149	Uganda
55	Albania	150	Nepal
56	Seychelles	151	Kyrgyzstan
57	Paraguay	152	Togo
58	South Korea	153	Turkmenistan
59	Senegal	154	Tajikistan
60	Philippines	155	Zimbabwe
61	Mexico	156	Tanzania
62	Slovakia	157	Djibouti
63	Egypt	158	Eritrea
64	Kazakhstan	159	Madagascar
65	Uruguay	160	Viet Nam
66	Hungary	161	Guinea
67	Trinidad & Tobago	162	Mauritania
68	St. Lucia	163	Mali
69	Belize	164	Cameroon
70	Turkey	165	Laos
71	Nicaragua	166	Congo
72	Belarus	167	North Korea
73	Lithuania	168	Namibia
74	St. Vincent & the Grenadines	169	Botswana
75	Argentina	170	Niger
76	Sri Lanka	171	Equatorial Guinea
77	Estonia	172	Rwanda
78	Guatemala	173	Afghanistan
79	Ukraine	174	Cambodia
80	Solomon Islands	175	South  Africa
81	Algeria	176	Guinea-Bissau
82	Palau	177	Swaziland
83	Jordan	178	Chad
84	Mauritius	179	Somalia
85	Grenada	180	Ethiopia
86	Antigua & Barbuda	181	Angola
87	Libya	182	Zambia
88	Bangladesh	183	Lesotho
89	Macedonia	184	Mozambique
90	Bosnia & Herzegovina	185	Malawi
91	Lebanon	186	Liberia
92	Indonesia	187	Nigeria
93	Iran	188	Congo
94	Bahamas	189	Central African Republic
95	Panama	190	Myanmar
		191	Sierra Leone

 

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/paper30.pdf. p. 18