This Map Of Health Care Costs Around The World Will Make Your Blood Boil

[Hissyspit]

February 16, 2015

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/02/16/global-health-care-cost-map/

This Map Of Health Care Costs Around The World Will Make Your Blood Boil

A map posted to Reddit by SwarlDelae shows the cost of healthcare around the world.

The map is created by using data from MGEN, France’s largest HMO and LMDE, France’s largest student HMO.

- snip -

That means it costs four times as much to be treated in the United States as it does in France. Black is the point where the chart ends and the United States. is just one giant black stain on the globe as far as health care costs are concerned. One of the major arguments against having a universal healthcare system in the United States is that it would raise taxes and make healthcare more expensive. As the map shows the exact opposite of this is true, a universal single-payer healthcare system would actually lower the cost of care in the United States.



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[world wide wally]

1. The price for "anything" goes down when you take out the profit margin..

Kindergarten logic.

[KG]

2. ACA - the 'uniquely american' solution.

and the wrong one.

[99th_Monkey]

3. Yes, but the USA has the very best care & most advanced medical technology

that NO ONE can afford except the super-rich.

[hunter]

15. Based on outcomes, it's not the best medicine, only the most expensive.

The super rich are more likely to receive medical care that is both insanely expensive and wildly inappropriate.

Too much medicine is often worse than too little, and it's often wiser to take the established generic drug than the latest uber-expensive drug the pharmaceutical representatives are pushing.

Evidence based medicine is often much less expensive than the whatever-the-hell-it-is kind of medicine practiced here in the U.S.A.

[CanSocDem]

33. "...wildly inappropriate." is a good characterization.

Even here in 'HealthCareHeaven' one has to be on the alert for inappropriate therapies. Being informed and understanding the objectives of a for profit medical industry, is the number one prescription for health. Knowing that there are alternatives, whether you use them or not, empowers you against the relentless hype of health marketing.

When you dig deeply into 'alternatives' you eventually arrive at FREE which is the death knell of the industry as you know. I sometimes think that people fear a post-consumerist society more than death itself.


.

[Paper Roses]

4. We can support so much of the world but cannot help our own.

Every time I see one of these world wide health care surveys, I cringe. We have paid and still pay. So many of us live in fear of a medical event that will send us into the poor house. Of course, that is if we are not already there.

I am sure many of us are facing a health situation right now, as I am. I am so afraid that I will not be able to pay my regular bills and anything that may result of my current health situation.

Social Security for old timers does not go far. With the health care options we now have, the cost takes a huge chunk of the monthly check we receive, the rest of our living expenses have to come out of the rest.

I am uneasy as to my future, as are so many others.
Billions to other countries, the heck with the rest of us.

Maybe I'm off base but I am a firm believer that we should take care of the home front first.

[Mimosa]

8. Map of Health Care Across the World

Paper Roses, you said it.

Social Security for old timers does not go far. With the health care options we now have, the cost takes a huge chunk of the monthly check we receive, the rest of our living expenses have to come out of the rest.

I'm not yet old enough for Social Security, but have several friends who are. After having paid FICA taxes for so long I didn't expect they also would have to get 'premiums' deducted from their S.S checks for below basic health care coverage. So they have to spend even more money they don't have for supplemental policies. The system is a mess.

[Scarsdale]

35. Exactly

Not to mention that eye care and hearing is not covered. I pay $187 monthly for my supplement, and still would LOVE to have hearing aides or even dental care included. They are not. I can not even afford a cleaning, and I checked prices on hearing aides, and can not afford them.

[Plucketeer]

12. Isn't it AMAZING????

Billions to countries that don't even NEED that cash, just so we can (technically) list them in the "friend" category. And all the military operations on foreign soil that are really cash springs that those economies slurp from. Be DAMNED if we'll close any of those and piss off those folks for having yanked their subsidies!!!

But give the old folks a few bucks to let them eat something besides cat food??? Oh HELL NO! Give them something to think about besides the cost of their next fall or infection? Think again! Let their kids absorb those bills - isn't that what kids are for?

Greece is waking up - will the USA ever come to it's senses???

[former9thward]

5. Its pretty easy to have low health care costs

when you don't have any health care.

[AllyCat]

9. France, Norway and Sweden don't have health care?

[former9thward]

11. Most of the light colors are in areas which have next

to nothing in health care. The OP is talking about low costs in France compared to the U.S. What the OP does not mention is the taxation is far higher in France so the overall cost to people is not lower at all. I do favor single payer but not because of cost. It will not be cheaper. It will be simpler and more effective because of that.

[Jackpine Radical]

13. I think it would also be cheaper

For several reasons. For one thing you eliminate the immense ins. co. profits, and for another, you eliminate the staff needed to keep track of the bills, payments, authorizations that every provider now has to have in place.

Other countries, with other systems, only pay about half what we do per capita for health care. That is not an accident.

[NJCher]

14. question

former9thward, what do you think of single payer, given the dominance of processed food in the American diet, which of course is one of the causes of higher medical costs?

I'm struggling with this one, being a boomer. I have cut out salt and thus no longer need blood pressure meds. That's an example of how I've cut out doctors and pharmaceutical companies through education.

I want single payer, but under some circumstances, it seems like it is just subsidizing poor nutritional habits.

This latest news item out of the UK, about parents being fined for having overweight children, has me wondering about how people might effectively be forced into more nutritionally healthy ways. I would never have thought about this as a way of going out about convincing the populace to investigate healthier options. As an educator, I would advocate teaching people about the dangers of salt, etc.

But hey, who is to say I'm right? Maybe this more forceful means would be faster and more effective.



Cher

[former9thward]

16. I don't really know if there would be a link

between good nutrition and single payer. I will have to think about it.

I am the wrong person to comment on salt. My mother and grandmother denounced my eating habits from the time I was 8 until their dying days because of the amount of salt I used. I never stopped, salting most things, and I have never been to a dr. or hospital for any sickness, just occasional check up and I am 64. Maybe I am lucky so I don't recommend to anyone else although some experts now have reversed themselves on salt.

No Benefit Seen in Sharp Limits on Salt in Diet

In a report that undercuts years of public health warnings, a prestigious group convened by the government says there is no good reason based on health outcomes for many Americans to drive their sodium consumption down to the very low levels recommended in national dietary guidelines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/15/health/panel-finds-no-benefit-in-sharply-restricting-sodium.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

[BrotherIvan]

17. The cost in taxation is far lower than what the US pays in premiums

Merely premiums, not actual care. The countries with some form of socialized medicine also have far better mortality rates and standard of living. They have better education and cleaner, safer cities. There is no comparison. My European relatives when they come here look around and think we live in a third world country.

[former9thward]

20. No, it is not "far lower"

The overall rate of social security and tax on the average wage in 2005 was 71.3% of gross salary, the highest of the OECD.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_France

I wonder why Europeons come here for health care and come here for jobs since we are a "third world country".

[BrotherIvan]

21. Your figures are way off

The average in the US is 29%, in France 46%

http://www.oecd.org/ctp/tax-policy/taxing-wages.htm

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

And Europeans get more for their taxes: college, health care, excellent public transport, excellent commons, excellent social security, etc.

Americans pay for all of those things ON TOP OF their taxes. A lot more!

[ND-Dem]

24. and don't get them; look at what's called public transit here.

[BrotherIvan]

27. Yes, I think more people should travel to see what's going on

I pay almost $150 per month for two cell phones that barely work outside of my city. My European relative pays $15 a month for unlimited everything and his works anywhere in the world. We went to Memphis to see Graceland and we all were aghast at the level of poverty and decay in that city. Los Angeles, where I live is a shithole except for the gentrified neighborhoods. So many hungry and homeless, children living in cars, people dying because they can't afford care? It is not technically third world, but some parts of this country definitely qualify as second world.

I'm not saying Europe is perfect, but their standard of living is much higher. It's because we privatize everything in the name of almighty profits and spend our budget on the military. It really is that simple.

[ND-Dem]

29. +100. and unless you can insulate yourself with money, living in the middle of suffering and

decay is damn depressing.

[gopiscrap]

38. +1,000,000

I can only share my personal experience. I was born and lived in Germany and when I was 2 months old, I came down with a case of encephalitis. I spent the next 6 months in the hospital (7 weeks of that in intensive care) my parents got a bill for 11.57 in US dollars which would probably about 220.00 in todays dollars. In 1991 I had cancer for a second time. This time I was insured because I had to quit work and then couldn't get insurance. This time the bills came to 168,000.00 total. We lost everything we had.

[BrotherIvan]

39. I'm glad you're ok!

But that is a terrible story. How devastating to be worried about your health and finances at the same time. It's some of the worst stress I can think of. I said on another thread that for the last two years of my mother's life, we mortgaged her house to pay for her care which ended up being $250,000.00 In Denmark where my family is, that cost would be $0.

And not only that, their Social Security is amazing too, the equivalent of about $2500 a month. And a niece is getting her student stipend as she goes to college which is about $1200 a month.

I honestly don't see how any American thinks we have it better. Our taxes go to pay for the military. That's why the richest country on earth has such poor citizens in terms of social safety net.

[ND-Dem]

25. unless you live in a wealthy area, most of the country now looks like it's third world. it's

very depressing.

[eridani]

32. Yep--anyone who would prefer paying an $800/month premium to a

$200/month tax is too stupid to be let outdoors without adult supervision.

[progressoid]

36. Nope. “it’s the prices, stupid.”

There is a simple reason health care in the United States costs more than it does anywhere else: The prices are higher.

That may sound obvious. But it is, in fact, key to understanding one of the most pressing problems facing our economy. In 2009, Americans spent $7,960 per person on health care. Our neighbors in Canada spent $4,808. The Germans spent $4,218. The French, $3,978. If we had the per-person costs of any of those countries, America’s deficits would vanish. Workers would have much more money in their pockets. Our economy would grow more quickly, as our exports would be more competitive.

There are many possible explanations for why Americans pay so much more. It could be that we’re sicker. Or that we go to the doctor more frequently. But health researchers have largely discarded these theories. As Gerard Anderson, Uwe Reinhardt, Peter Hussey and Varduhi Petrosyan put it in the title of their influential 2003 study on international health-care costs, “it’s the prices, stupid.”

As it’s difficult to get good data on prices, that paper blamed prices largely by eliminating the other possible culprits. They authors considered, for instance, the idea that Americans were simply using more health-care services, but on close inspection, found that Americans don’t see the doctor more often or stay longer in the hospital than residents of other countries. Quite the opposite, actually. We spend less time in the hospital than Germans and see the doctor less often than the Canadians.

“The United States spends more on health care than any of the other OECD countries spend, without providing more services than the other countries do,” they concluded. “This suggests that the difference in spending is mostly attributable to higher prices of goods and services.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/03/15/why-an-mri-costs-1080-in-america-and-280-in-france/

[RationalMan]

37. Yes taxes in countries with single payer / universal coverage are higher but......

I wonder how the costs to provide largely comparable health care services compare between the U.S. and other countries when you take into account the cost of private insurance or what is paid by Medicare / Medicaid with the higher taxes in the other countries.

I have not seen an actual comparison between these two systems that takes all these elements into account. In essence the premiums paid by employers/employees and the associated co-pays, maximum out of pocket, deductibles, etc. along with what is paid into Medicare by taxpayers plus premiums paid by Medicare subscribers including the uncovered amount or the additional premiums for supplemental, etc. in toto need to be compared with the actual costs in terms of taxes in these other countries.

[Violet_Crumble]

28. Our healthcare costs are far less than in the US and we have a high standard of health care n/t

[former9thward]

34. No,you pay those costs in income taxes.

So they are not "far less".

[abelenkpe]

6. K&R

[Fumesucker]

7. Not if you're an insurance executive or a hospital or pharma ceo

[MisterP]

10. interestingly Russia's trying to make a long, slow slog from when Yeltsin privatized

its healthcare system: it took hours to wait for the ambulance because they were turned into taxis and the "shock therapy" (and New Russia's vodka) made the death rate surge, knocking the life expectancy back 10 years--Heydrich would tell Jeffrey Sachs to cool it

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Cross
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Russia#Demographic_crisis_and_recovery_prospects

[ND-Dem]

23. thanks for that. i wondered what happened there, as russia used to have a not so bad health

care system, and certainly not so expensive.

there was a period when Russian medical research was competitive with the US.

[woo me with science]

18. Oligarchy.

Bought-and-paid-for politicians ensure mad profits for middlemen and thieves, while diligently preventing access to a more humane system.

[countryjake]

19. K&R!

[ND-Dem]

22. interesting that health care in the former communist countries is nearly as expensive as in the US.

Russia, china. and brazil is also expensive, for some reason.

[marym625]

26. a friend of mine just went to Israel

He was visiting his sister and brought his elderly mother. They were visiting some historic place and his 83 year old mother fell down 2 full flights of cement steps.

They took her to the ER where she was X rayed, examined and bandaged up.

It cost $300

[davidpdx]

30. South Korea where I live is on the lower end of the spectrum in orange

It's hard to see that bar down at the bottom. My eyes seem to be getting worse lately.

I also have to question how healthcare in Africa could be so cheap. It appears to me that all the countries except for one are orange, yellow, or green. I'm not surprised by Europe, the Middle East, and most of Asia. Most countries in those areas have good healthcare.

[RB TexLa]

31. Which is why we should use medicare and medicad to drive down what is paid to

doctors and facilities.