1) Inefficiency is a pervasive problem in healthcare systems. In fact, the World Health Organization estimates that, on average, 20—40% of total health spending worldwide is wasted.
1. I have very little trust in the "World Health Organization." Weren't they the ones who bought into Chinese propaganda about how Covid was not transmitted human to human?
The assertion on January 14 that there was "no clear evidence" the coronavirus could spread between people was soon proved wrong.
www.businessinsider.com
2) Had the US adopted a universal healthcare system as the rest of the world's modern nations, it would be in a position to adopt "ECONOMIES OF SCALE," as opposed to the piecemeal, inefficient system that have resulted in the highest per capita costs!
LOL! You haven't any understanding of the power of both Big Pharma and Big Insurance in the USA. You also fail to recognize that the USA is NOT a "socialist paradise" which taxes its higher wage earners up to 90% of their income in order to pay for everyone else.
Thats a major burden on middle and upper class citizens in most of your "European" examples.
Now in tiny, mostly "homogenous" nations like Denmark (6 million), Finland (5.5 million), Norway (5.5 million), or even Sweden (11 million) that idea might fly.
But we have individual cities (ex. NYC 8.9 million, Greater Los Angeles area 12.5 million) and many States as well with populations larger than each of those countries.
3) Americans have created the worst of all possible world's with respect to healthcare - expected to pay for the CADILLAC" of medical systems, only to receive a substandard product in return!
Not really. What we do have is a society that pushes excess in almost everything, especially eating habits. But also, drug use (legal and illegal), drinking alcohol, indolence (more time spent in front of TV's and computers and on handheld devices), and "vaping" (as a replacement for cigarettes).
What we don't push is diet and exercise. Meanwhile or Medical Industry does push drugs for everything from "restless leg syndrome" to "gender reassignment hormone" treatments.
However, we still do have the best medical care available...at the highest prices the "market" will bear.
- The U.S. spends more on health care as a share of the economy — nearly twice as much as the average OECD country — yet has the lowest life expectancy and highest suicide rates among the 11 nations.
See "Pushes excess..." above. All the better to keep the medical industry fully financed and stockholders and purveyors of healthcare reaping big dividends.
- The U.S. has the highest chronic disease burden and an obesity rate that is two times higher than the OECD average.
- Americans had fewer physician visits than peers in most countries, which may be related to a low supply of physicians in the U.
- Compared to peer nations, the U.S. has among the highest number of hospitalizations from preventable causes and the highest rate of avoidable deaths.
See above.
4) Over a million Americans have become "medical tourists" annually - forced to seek medical procedures outside of the US due to prohibitive costs!
So 0.3%? Oh my!
5) Any nation that is prepared to devote more of its healthcare dollars to administration costs, as opposed to long-term care of its older citizens, has lost sight of its priorities and has allowed itself to be held hostage by the private healthcare sector!
Now I have been ragging on your "evidence," but I actually agree with you when it comes to the problems with the US Medical Industry.
It seems they are more interested in profit than adhering to the writing of Hypocrites in "
Of the Epidemics:" "The physician must be able to tell the antecedents, know the present, and foretell the future — must mediate these things, and have
two special objects in view with regard to disease, namely,
to do good or to do no harm." This is the true source of many Physician's oaths.