Health care
Apr. 14th, 2005 10:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
libertangoPaul Krugman has an informative piece on health care today.
Here's the money quote, especially for small-l libertarians, although he doesn't drive it home:
"Above all, a large part of America's health care spending goes into paperwork. A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administrative costs took 31 cents out of every dollar the United States spent on health care, compared with only 17 cents in Canada."
Translation: Even though Canada has a government run, "single-payer" system, the "private-sector" US spends more on bureauracy, dollar for dollar!
Krugman also makes clear our "private-sector" system isn't that private:
"In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.
Amazing, isn't it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more on health care than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else."
Again: We spend more government dollars per person than either Canada or France.
No wonder there's been such resistance to "socialized medicine" in the US by the health care infrastructure: Turns out it would cut governmment subsidies too much.
Piggies at the trough.
Here's the money quote, especially for small-l libertarians, although he doesn't drive it home:
"Above all, a large part of America's health care spending goes into paperwork. A 2003 study in The New England Journal of Medicine estimated that administrative costs took 31 cents out of every dollar the United States spent on health care, compared with only 17 cents in Canada."
Translation: Even though Canada has a government run, "single-payer" system, the "private-sector" US spends more on bureauracy, dollar for dollar!
Krugman also makes clear our "private-sector" system isn't that private:
"In 2002, the latest year for which comparable data are available, the United States spent $5,267 on health care for each man, woman and child in the population. Of this, $2,364, or 45 percent, was government spending, mainly on Medicare and Medicaid. Canada spent $2,931 per person, of which $2,048 came from the government. France spent $2,736 per person, of which $2,080 was government spending.
Amazing, isn't it? U.S. health care is so expensive that our government spends more on health care than the governments of other advanced countries, even though the private sector pays a far higher share of the bills than anywhere else."
Again: We spend more government dollars per person than either Canada or France.
No wonder there's been such resistance to "socialized medicine" in the US by the health care infrastructure: Turns out it would cut governmment subsidies too much.
Piggies at the trough.
