Our healthcare system is the most expensive by far amongst developed, prosperous countries and it is the worst care in terms of meeting our needs. In the last post, I wrote about medical debt crushing many American families. In the post before that we reviewed medical advertising as a very poor source of healthcare information. We have an extremely expensive system that is producing very poor outcomes. That is the very definition of a low-value healthcare system.
“people in the United States experience the worst health outcomes overall of any high-income nation.1 Americans are more likely to die younger, and from avoidable causes, than residents of peer countries.” The link goes to an excellent article with the facts on this terrible problem.
Scroll through the link above. There are multiple graphs with very interesting data. For example, the U.S. spends three to four times more on health care than Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, and Singapore. Americans’ life expectancy at birth is three years shorter than the average for other prosperous countries. Avoidable deaths per 100,000 people are sharply higher than in other countries. Deaths from physical assault are seven times higher in the US compared. We have a much higher number of patients who are obese with multiple chronic conditions.
Here are some examples of how we fall short. We spend far more per person and as a share of gross domestic product than other high-income countries, but we are the only high-income country that does not cover everyone. Other high-income countries understand that healthcare is like water and electricity service. Everyone needs it, and it is in the community’s interest to see that they have it. We have the lowest life expectancy at birth, the highest death rates for avoidable or treatable conditions, the highest infant and maternal mortality, and some of the highest suicide rates. What can you say about a country that does not do all they can to protect mothers and babies. We have an obesity rate twice that of other high-income countries and the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke. We see doctors less often than people in most other countries and have one of the lowest number of practicing doctors per 1000 people.
We have the highest cost, lowest quality healthcare system among wealthy countries. We have not revised our system to address the needs of patients with chronic illnesses. It is not that hard to fix our system so that we live longer healthier lives at lower cost. More on that in the next post.
The entire system is a colossal monopoly managed by a few crony capitalists with their running dogs in and out of the revolving doors of the DC swamp. I might add up all of them: the big food, media, Silicon Valley oligarchy, military industrial complex, the big dc law firms, including, but not limited to the federal government alphabet agencies. They are ALL in it together!
Yet again, Bill is concise, thoughtful, and On Point.