I keep running into the argument that health care spending in the US is much higher then in other developed countries and the quality is much lower. I think i remember a counter point that the population in the US is much less homogeneous then these countries. Can anyone add to this argument or clarify it. Also any articles addressing this would really help.
Where do they think the money is coming from? The government is at least 60% of the healthcare market.
yeah but what i think they are asuming is that in the european countries the government controls more of the market and the costs are lower and the quality is higher.
In the USA, the government controls the entire market, or at least as much Europe, via licensing, the FTC, the FDA, antitrust, tax laws, etc. Also, quality is subjective. Furthermore, it is fallacious to believe that everyone requires an equal amount of healthcare, besides, the costs are about a market-determined as postage.
Ask them why they think a higher percentage of total spending is bad, especially how that squares with them advocating exactly that: more spending.
I was listening to an interview of Ron Paul by Lew Rockwell on the health care bill recently. They mentioned how government interference in that industry has been incremental over 50 years. Does anyone know of a study of American healthcare that includes a historical and Austrian economics perspective ? With all the talk about how ‘healthcare needs to be fixed’ I’d like to know how we got to this place - - and who was at fault. (The assumption of those who support the bill seem to be “Its all the fault of the big bad insurance companies.” ) Thanks, - -
The corrolation that is drawn is an increase in total spending in the US and higher life exspectances and lower infant mortality rate in europe.
The U.S. has higher life expectancy for people who are already sick than Canada and UK. Furthermore, people can and do travel internationally to get treatments. As for infant mortality, I don’t pay attention to that, but I heard that Cuba doesn’t count infants until 7 months. Nice trick, eh?
Those who claim health care quality in other countries is superior base it on:
(1) A WHO study that ranked countries by equality of health care and claimed it was quality;
(2) Life expectancy and infant mortality statistics, both of which have little to do with quality of health care.
In almost every case where controlled comparisons between countries of specific outcomes amongst comparable patients are made, the US comes out on top. This is well known amongst health care providers in all countries. The most famous example is cancer survival, but in almost every nook & cranny where you can infer such a comparison, the US shows very well.
And Americans do spend more–even adjusting for per capita GDP–for much same reason why they get the best quality. The tradition of third-party financing in this country has been until recently to simply pay for what health care providers delivered. Naturally, health care providers then came to deliver only state-of-the-art care, and state-of-the-art became standard-of-care. Providers certainly wouldn’t complain, and because patients prepaid for the service through taxes and premiums, and received no or little benefit for saving on health care expenses, they didn’t complain about always getting the highest cost available services either.
Countries with socialized medicine also suffer the same third-party inefficiencies as the US, with the same out-of-control rate of growth in health care prices. But through direct rationing, they have a lower baseline expense, and a lower quality.
Neither of the government-fueled systems can be sustained. As long as the governments continue to directly or indirectly impose third-party financing, prices will rise, the money will run out, and quality will diminish.
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AMA, Artificial scarcity of physician’s.
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FDA, Artificial Scarcity of Drugs
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Fascistic partnership between FDA and drug companies
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Socialist welfare programs Medicare Medicaid
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State laws, Insurance costs are driven up due to various regulations
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Corporate Based HealthCare, Artificial Scarcity of consumers. Insurance providers sell to business’s not to individuals
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Slap on some heavy regulation to just about every medical organization, including all aspects. Hospitals, clinics, personal home care, anything.
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Suspect state sponsored Insurance/Drug Company Cartel linked through FDA
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Much of the worlds HealthCare R&D is done in the states. We front the bill for that. Our quality isn’t worse perse. We get drugs first I would say.
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IP laws on drugs gives companies artificial state sponsored monopolies over the distribution of drugs.
#8 is more speculation but the list could go on.
If anyone thinks healthcare could be affordable in the midst of all that then it’s apparent they have no economic understanding.