Total spending on health care, per person, 2007:
United States: $7290
United Kingdom: $2992
Italy: $2686
Spain: $2671
We must be getting the best outcomes, right? Think of all our technology!?! Think again:
As of the 2006 data (the most recent I can find), we ranked 27th in infant mortality, just behind the Slovak Republic, with Mexico nipping at our heels. Life expectancy at 65 for females (compared among the relatively wealthy nations) ranks 14th, males 18th. We perform similarly poorly in almost all metrics you look at, perennially trailing countries that spend 4 or 5 times less per person than we do; hell, we trail countries that people would otherwise routinely mock as sadly “backward” or “economically stunted.” Dread France beats us on costs and outcomes. Repeatedly. (This data and much more available here. Use it. Please.) So, just to summarize in the simplest, clearest terms possible:
we pay 2.4 times more per person on healthcare than our next nearest competitor and get substantially worse outcomes than countries spending even less than that.
But, by all means, GOP: don’t mess with such a powerhouse of efficiency. Well, beyond your proposed “solutions” of blowing up the existing employer-based system and putting everybody out on the streets to fend for themselves.
Today’s GOP can effectively be summed up by the phrase “Go Die in the Streets.” Seriously, it applies to every position they have. Clearly, they’re working backwards from it to form whatever passes for policy in their lairs.
Just to review, I give you the 2010 GOP Platform:
Social Security: Go Die in the (Wall) Streets
Welfare: Go Die in the Streets
Immigration: Go Die in the Streets (preferably of your home country, but we’re not picky)
Healthcare: Go Die in the Streets
Military Spending: Go into the Streets so you can Die
Firearms/Gun Control: Go Die in the Streets
Abortion: Go Die in the (back) Streets
Prove me wrong, children. Prove me wrong.
Lemkin 