The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.
Whether that quality is necessarily (or good) is debatable, but we are getting something for the money.
You also are just completely wrong in your main point. We cannot provide the same efficacy of healthcare as we are now for 60% less. We are the richest country in the world, labor costs more here than other places.
I tried an American PPO with $10 co-pay and no deductibles. It was awesome :)
Nobody could tell me what anything would cost, or if the insurance would cover it. But I always ended up paying $10, whether it was a few pills or an expensive MRI I didn't need.
Oh, yeah the downside is you can accidentally convince your doctor to get procedures you don't need.
Health care in Denmark is decent. But I've been told, no when I wanted to run some tests. That would never happen on an American PPO :)
I have had go wait, while unpleasant, it's fairly harmless (otherwise they don't let you wait).
So if you're on an great PPO plan in the US, healthcare is great.
Whether the outcome is better for the average Joe, is probably a different question.
My sister used to cook on private Yachts in the Mediterranean, and mingle with that part of the population that pay 3-5k/month for private insurance, helicopter evacuation and all that. I'm pretty sure they can ask their clinics any unnecessary tests they want, too.
I've had PPO insurance for a few decades. I've been denied tests and procedures many times, even when I had radiologist exams that supported the surgery according to their own rules. I've been forced to wait for procedures on many occasions.
Ive been to doctors in different countries including the USA. Theres nothing special with general practitioners with the USA.
Or if you end up in China, you can get blood panels for like 10RMB, MRI for 30RMB, and damn near automated to boot.
Go to Mexico for dental work. What costs you here $30k costs you $2k, and they take your insurance.
The US citizens are being gouged, because our government has been bought out by corporate interests who bribe, err, campaign donate to both parties. And thats across every economic activity. Medical is just an egregious one, alongside academics.
Expenses are definitely higher, and doctors and hospital CEOs and med school CEOs do drive nicer cars and have bigger summer dachas, but I can't say the same about quality. Six month waits for a specialist, every PCP and shrink you'd want to visit not taking on new patients, ER wait times comparable with other developed nations, worse overall outcomes...
Maybe the top 0.5% is getting better care, but I really wouldn't shed a lot of crocodile tears for them.
> See what the wait times are for the specialists in other countries, if they even exist!
I assure you, they exist, I have been to them, and the wait times were about as long.
> It’s very hard to solve these things are such a massive scale.
That's goalpost-shifting nonsense that doesn't justify the outrageous cost of healthcare. And most of these problems become easier to solve with a higher population and density and larger economy, because you have way more slack in the system, and you have way more economies of scale that you can put to work.
I'm also not complaining about healthcare in the middle of Alaska, 50 miles from a highway (or deep in the poverty belt). I'm talking about overpriced, underachieving care in wealthy metro areas.
> The quality of health care in the US is significantly higher than anywhere else in the world.
Simply not true.
Infant mortality and under-five mortality rate (U5MR) are one of best simple indicators of the quality of healthcare. USA's mortality is x3 (!!!) of the countries on top. This puts USA around place 50 in the world, worse than Russia...
If you define quality as range of treatment options available, sure. If you define quality as range of treatment options that are accessible, absolutely not.
> 15 out of the top 50 and 4/6 top hospitals in the world are in the US
Outliers do not say much about the overall quality of healthcare in a country. Rather obvious lesson in statistics.
Reminds me of the Russian mathematician who moved to the US after the fall of the Soviet Union. Most of his essays were criticizing American students, but in one essay he was quite frank:
Russians who graduate with math degrees are better than Americans who do so, by a wide margin. However, the average American is better at math because they still get access to some math education in university and do not need to be a top student for admission. Whereas in Russia, if you didn't meet a rather high bar, you simply couldn't get admitted as an engineering/physics/math program, and thus couldn't further your math education (I believe he said the cutoff was even before university).
Country with the top mathematicians, but country with worse math outcomes.
My argument is that specifically the best care in the US is the best in the world. We have the best doctors and the best technology and the best treatments. This is not completely universal but it is also generally accurate.
Whether or not this care is accessible or the median quality is care is good, that is different.
I’m just saying we do get something for the money, it’s not like it all gets thrown down the drain. The best and brightest come to the US to get some of the huge spigots of money in the US healthcare system and it does drive innovation.
This is a highly recycled talking point that only applies to people lucky enough to live in the vicinity of Standford, UCLA, Mass Gen, Cleveland Clinic, or Johns Hopkins AND afford a visit and is extremely dismissive of the millions of other Americans who can't. Rural hospitals have been shuttered and some people have even been turned away at emergency rooms now. This claim simply does not match up to reality, no matter how many graphs you put together.
> the best care in the US is the best in the world
For a few Americans. Not for all Americans, and probably not even for most Americans. There's far more to the United States than New England and Southern California.
Don't get me wrong, if I had some rare cancer or other strange disease, chances are I'll want to try and get in to one of these few rare ultra premium hospitals. But if I break my leg or get some normal infection or have a child or any of the other normal kinds of issues people have? Will that still be the best tier of care?
> if I break my leg or get some normal infection or have a child or any of the other normal kinds of issues people have? Will that still be the best tier of care?
Does it need to be? I imagine it's far easier to treat a broken bone, in most cases, vs a rare complex disease
I'd have different standards when researching where to have teeth cleaning vs oral surgery
Can't you just look at life expectancy, and life expectancy in good health? Because the data I found doesn't put the US in the top anything. Even if you're in the top decile of earners.
Your mistake is separating those items from healthcare, when it's part of it.
Even in the US, many (most?) insurances and healthcare systems have programs to address all those. My HMO certainly does - I can engage with them and craft a healthy nutrition plan, and my doctor can be involved in that as well. Ditto for exercise.
So you're saying the US optimizes entirely for the best of the best care, without regard for what happens to the 2nd tier? (that the majority of the population actually use)
If care is not affordable and makes average people just one accident away from bankruptcy, then it might well not exist in calculations. This is akin to saying the USA is the richest country because it has more billionaires than any other country.
On an anecdotal basis, I relied on the Taiwanese National Health (NHI) for years and found it vastly superior in terms of quality and cost to the United States.
Perhaps a more accurate claim might be: The quality of the health care system in the U.S. is unparalleled provided that you are in the 1% that can afford it.
Whether that quality is necessarily (or good) is debatable, but we are getting something for the money.
You also are just completely wrong in your main point. We cannot provide the same efficacy of healthcare as we are now for 60% less. We are the richest country in the world, labor costs more here than other places.