I've just seen Michael Moore's new film, Sicko. I knew that the American "health care? system?" was broken but I had no idea that the health insurance companies are about as criminal as the tobacco companies. Some years ago I considered moving to the USA (from the UK). I'm glad I didn't. I moved to Australia instead.
I note that some Presidential candidates have promised to fix health insurance so that every one has it. But, that won't fix the problem because the insurance companies will just take the premiums whilst denying treatment (unless this is legislated against and I don't imagine the insurance companies would take such a thing lying down.)
As a little aside, I'm always amazed how cheaply American politicians can be bought through campaign donations. In Moore's film he mentions the donations made to politicians for what amounts to not many millions of dollars for what must be billions in benefits such as lack of regulation, low corporate taxes, poor consumer protection etc.
The table below uses figures from the World Health Organisation from a small sample of English speaking OECD countries. Even though the USA has a private, and therefore supposedly efficient health system; as opposed to an inefficient, supposedly, public system the USA actually spends more as a percentage of its GDP on health care to reach considerably less than 100% of the population. How efficient is that? I also note that a a similar proportion of government revenue is spent on the public health care system as other countries in the sample. A double whammy for your average American citizen.
I note that some Presidential candidates have promised to fix health insurance so that every one has it. But, that won't fix the problem because the insurance companies will just take the premiums whilst denying treatment (unless this is legislated against and I don't imagine the insurance companies would take such a thing lying down.)
As a little aside, I'm always amazed how cheaply American politicians can be bought through campaign donations. In Moore's film he mentions the donations made to politicians for what amounts to not many millions of dollars for what must be billions in benefits such as lack of regulation, low corporate taxes, poor consumer protection etc.
The table below uses figures from the World Health Organisation from a small sample of English speaking OECD countries. Even though the USA has a private, and therefore supposedly efficient health system; as opposed to an inefficient, supposedly, public system the USA actually spends more as a percentage of its GDP on health care to reach considerably less than 100% of the population. How efficient is that? I also note that a a similar proportion of government revenue is spent on the public health care system as other countries in the sample. A double whammy for your average American citizen.
| English speaking OECD countries | Total expenditure on health as % of gross domestic product | General government expenditure on health as % of total government expenditure |
| Australia | 9.6 | 18.5 |
| Canada | 9.8 | 17.1 |
| New Zealand | 8.4 | 18.2 |
| United Kingdom | 8.1 | 15.9 |
| United States of America | 15.4 | 18.9 |
A publicly funded health care system is much cheaper for the average citizen (through taxation) than rip off premiums for "insurance". Glad I live in the land of the free; freedom from fear that I'll end up a pauper if I become ill.
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