Reply #76: Before HCR we had the most expensive healthcare in the world ...

[spin]

and after HCR, it looks like it will be far more expensive.


Total Health Expenditures Per Capita, U.S. and Selected Countries, 2003

http://www.kff.org/insurance/snapshot/chcm010307oth.cfm

To top everything off, our heathcare system sucks compared to other countries. I hate to say it, but I'm beginning to believe that it may suck even more after HCR. Surely we could have done better.

(Reuters) - Americans spend twice as much as residents of other developed countries on healthcare, but get lower quality, less efficiency and have the least equitable system, according to a report released on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON | Wed Jun 23, 2010 4:48pm EDT

The United States ranked last when compared to six other countries -- Britain, Canada, Germany, Netherlands, Australia and New Zealand, the Commonwealth Fund report found.

***snip***


The current report uses data from nationally representative patient and physician surveys in seven countries in 2007, 2008, and 2009. It is available here

In 2007, health spending was $7,290 per person in the United States, more than double that of any other country in the survey.emphasis added

Australians spent $3,357, Canadians $3,895, Germans $3,588, the Netherlands $3,837 and Britons spent $2,992 per capita on health in 2007. New Zealand spent the least at $2,454.

This is a big rise from the Fund's last similar survey, in 2007, which found Americans spent $6,697 per capita on healthcare in 2005, or 16 percent of gross domestic product.

"We rank last on safety and do poorly on several dimensions of quality," Schoen told reporters. "We do particularly poorly on going without care because of cost. And we also do surprisingly poorly on access to primary care and after-hours care."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65M0SU20100623