A new study out today from The Johns Hopkins School of Public Health tells us what we more or less already knew:
U.S. citizens spent $5,267 per capita on health care. The country with the next highest per capita expenditure, Switzerland, spent $3,446 per capita. The median OECD country spent $2,193 per capita.
US Health Costs consume an absurd amount of our GDP. And guess what? Our life expectancy is lower than that of other industrialized nations, our infant mortality rates are higher… all in all we’re getting a totally crappy ROI.
So what’s suprising in this report? Hold your breath now… it turns out that the reason these costs are so high is NOT because of the evil trial attorneys:
Another perceived cause of higher health care costs in the United States is that malpractice suits increase the prices charged by doctors and cause them to practice defensive medicine, which occurs when doctors order extra tests or procedures to reduce their risk of being sued. The researchers compared the number of malpractice claims and awards in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom and found that while U.S. citizens sue more often, the actual settlements from all four countries were comparable.
Omigod! Someone call the RNC pronto! They might want to know they’ve been misleading the American public!
Seriously, though… this is interesting. We spend a lot of money, we don’t get very good return on the investment. Clearly we need an alternative. None of the European systems is perfect (France’s is probably better for us than Britian’s, but Germany’s may be the best of the three), but at least they’re getting a better deal.
Think about that for a second: the Europeans are spending less as a society (and, by proxy, as a government) for health care than we are, and getting a better deal. For all the whining about socialized medicine, it seems to miss that fundamental point. Socialized medicine is a better value all around. We end up spending less and getting more. Isn’t that a conservative mantra?
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Now Playing: Episode 366
Obama staffs up, Detroit comes to DC and finally, Iraq and the US come to a security agreement.
Links Mentioned: Iraq SOFA … pros and cons of a bailout.
Well, I’m glad you rephrased the “mob” part of Robert’s and Matt’s musings. Principal agent sounds so much more, I don’t know, academic. And clearly you’re onto something.
But see, what I want to know is this: where were the principal agents of yesteryear? You write that in Seattle wealth was more dispersed than in Chicago and NY, but I don’t know if I buy that. Logging wealth, anyone? After all, mountains were literally moved here in Seattle, and for the benefit of private industry, mostly. More recently, the Nordstroms and the Boeings had outsized wealth.
My theory (and it’s just a theory, as I don’t have much in the way of research to back it up) is this: Seattle’s wealthy have had very little in the way of noblesse oblige. There’s a strong individualistic streak here, less of a sense of community obligation (not just among the wealthy, but among the whole citizenry).
Thus, you get the wildly skewed tax code. I mean, in NY the tax code is insanely progressive — and that came about, in part, because the rich saw it as their obligation to pay their fair share to contribute to the common good. The rich in Seattle, on the other hand, have kicked and screamed and refused to allow their taxes to go up even the teensiest bit.
The same logic applies to transit: the rich have had the attitude that, hell, I’ll never ride the train, so why should I help that project?
That’s a great point. It’s all “new money.” Even if it goes back to logging, it’s still not European aristocracy money, like you have back East, especially in the 19th century when all these big projects were underway.
And we had our principal actors back in the day. You remember the story of Mayor Yesler (the logging magnate!) paving the streets. He only paved the street between his sawmill and his house!