The fact is that the mainly private U.S. health care system spends far more than the mainly public health care systems of other advanced countries, but gets worse results. In 2001, we spent $4,887 on health care per capita, compared with $2,792 in Canada and $2,561 in France. Yet the U.S. does worse than either country by any measure of health care success you care to name - life expectancy, infant mortality, whatever. (At its best, U.S. health care is the best in the world. But the ranks of Americans who can't afford the best, and may have no insurance at all, are large and growing.)
What he doesn't say here is that not only do we do much worse at caring for the poor than all industrialized and many non-industrialized countries, but many of our poor fail to get care at all due to copays, premiums, and job instability. Generally speaking, the French system seems the most viable in the long term, whereas the German system, like ours in the US, is likely to collapse sooner or later.
no subject
What he doesn't say here is that not only do we do much worse at caring for the poor than all industrialized and many non-industrialized countries, but many of our poor fail to get care at all due to copays, premiums, and job instability. Generally speaking, the French system seems the most viable in the long term, whereas the German system, like ours in the US, is likely to collapse sooner or later.