Bush and Mitch McConnell Are Right! - The U.S. Clearly Has The Top Healthcare System In The World!

[TomCADem]

George W. Bush, as President, declared that the U.S. has the best healthcare system in the world. Mitch McConnell has recently made the same declaration. We're #1!

Guess what? They are right:

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Its not even close. God forbid that we adopt a public option that competes with private insurers. If we do, then that $6,500 in per capita spending on healthcare costs might actually go to the incomes of American workers.

Now, here's the thing. These charts tend to speak for themselves. Yet, why is it that network news does not have this charts plastered on their newscasts as part of any healthcare debate? Instead, all we get are clips of astroturf protestors disrupting townhall meetings on healthcare.

What's that? Sorry, I can't hear you above the din of the rent-a-protestors provided by astroturf lobbying group, Freedomworks.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

1. got the source on those

?

thanks.

[LunaSea]

2. source link

(http://) graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/07/09/business/econgraphic3.jpg

[LunaSea]

3. Found the source page-

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/08/us-health-spending-breaks-from-the-pack/

July 8, 2009, 7:51 pm
U.S. Health Spending Breaks From the Pack
By Catherine Rampell

Despite the fact that the United States is the only industrialized nation that does not ensure that all its citizens have health care coverage, the United States spends a (much) higher percentage of its gross domestic product on health care than its peers. It also spends (much) more per person on health care than its peers.

But that hasn’t always been the case.
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development recently released updated historical statistics on health care, showing that health expenditures have risen drastically across the industrialized world.

As demonstrated by the mass of squiggles in the chart above, the United States has generally been at the high end of health care spending. But once upon a time, it was more or less on par with its peers, and at various points even spent less of its G.D.P. on health care than some other countries (namely, Canada, Sweden, Denmark and Germany).

There were also a few years when it wasn’t the biggest spender per capita on health care, in purchasing power parity terms.
Source: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Data shown are in United States 2000 purchasing power parity dollars.

Although you could quibble about the exact trajectories, it seems to have been in the late 1970s or early 1980s that America’s health care spending really broke from the pack.

Since 1980, the portion of G.D.P. that America spends on health care has risen by about 7 percentage points, whereas the average for other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development countries has risen by 2.3 percentage points. Health expenditures per capita in the United States have likewise more than tripled since 1980, adjusting for inflation. The average for the rest of the member countries, where data are available, has more than doubled.

[TomCADem]

4. In addition to the NY Times...

There is the Kaiser Family Foundation, which notes:

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It is reasonably well known that for some time the United States has spent more per capita on health care than other countries. What may be less well known is that the United States has had one of the highest growth rates in per capita health care spending since 1980 among higher income countries. Health care spending around the world generally is rising at a faster rate than overall economic growth, so almost all countries have seen health care spending increase as a percentage of their gross domestic product (GDP) over time. In the United States, which has had both a high level of health spending per capita and a relatively high rate of real growth in that spending, the share of GDP devoted to health grew from 8.8% of GDP in 1980 to 15.2% of GDP in 2003 (Exhibit 5). This almost 7 percentage-point increase in the health share of GDP is larger than increases seen in other high-income countries.

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

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So, the information is out there. The problem is that the networks refuse to show it.

[TomCADem]

5. More - Official U.S. Census Data Corroborates Data On Per Capita Health Costs

U.S. Per Capita Healthcare costs grew from $2,647 per person in 1990 to $6,561 per person in 2006. Yet, you never really hear the major networks going over these basic facts and figures.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s0127.pdf

[TomCADem]

6. More - From Congressional Budget Office - Healthcare As % Of GDP

Page 2 shows that we are around 15% of GDP:

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/88xx/doc8807/11-13-2007-LT-Health-Presentation.pdf

[tridim]

7. Case closed.

Nobody can defend the data in those graphs, they represent exactly how much we are getting screwed.

[LynnTheDem]

8. USA; the most $ for the least healthcare.

Can't help but wonder how so many could possibly remain so duped tricked conned and blind to their own & their kids' best interests for so long.


Very sad.

[TomCADem]

9. Sadly, Instead Of Showing These Facts

The networks focus on false grassroots disruptions of townhall meetings, and then ignore the heavy hand of corporations and the GOP in organizing such disruptions by spreading lies about the healthcare plan involving the killing of seniors. With enough PR know-how, they can exploit seniors into demanding that the federal government terminate the Medicare benefits that they depend on. Get the government out of Medicare! It is really deplorable how these operatives can so easily lie to the American people, but anything for a buck I guess.

[LynnTheDem]

11. Even sadder, so many Americans (mostly republicans, of course) firmly support against their own

and their kids' best interests.

That, to me, is so deeply beyond ken.

[4lbs]

10. How sad that the U.S. spends twice as much per person on healthcare as the next country,

yet there are still 50 million uninsured, another 10 million underinsured, and we rank only 37th in quality of health care, and 50th in life expectancy.

So, even though we, as a country, outspend any other nation by at least 2 to 1, still have 20% of our population without adequate health care insurance and access.

[TomCADem]

12. Members Of Congress Should Start Townhalls By Simply Showing These Powerpoint Slides Of These

Let the astroturf yell and scream. I would finally add a slide pointing out that Medicare is a government run healthcare program. Then, after silently showing these slides, I would start the townhall.

[4lbs]

13. Since some of the disruptors are wearing military hats and shirts, show slides about VA hospitals

being government-run "socialized" health care.

Ask them if they'd prefer to do away with VA hospitals as well...