The complexities of the Obama-care legislation are a direct result of right wing reluctance to adopt the simple rational solution of Single Payer, Medicare for All (which is basically what the rest of the developed world has). That there are difficulties in the roll-out of this complex legislation is not a surprise. That some existing policies do not meet the minimum coverage guidelines of the law is also no surprise - insurance companies are experts at selling junk to the public. None of these problems is hard to solve. Once things are rolling, sensible people will be moving from the states with poor or no implementation to states with good implementation (California will probably be the first with the best and will benefit economically in two ways - major reduction of medical costs to release money to be spent in the consumer economy, and an influx of quality workers from other states (the people who move are usually the ones with initiative and talent) SO, DONT GO BACK - OUR CURRENT SYSTEM COSTS THREE TIMES THE AVERAGE OF THE COST IN DEVELOPED COUNTRIES AND PRODUCES BY FAR THE WORST RESULTS (CHECK THE CIA WEBSITE): 48th in Maternal Mortality rate. Switzerland is 25th 51st in Infant Mortality. Switzerland is 23rd 51st in Life Expectancy at Birth (78.6 years). Switzerland is 8th (82.3 years) The USA spends 18% of its GDP on Healthcare. The US GDP per-capita is ~$50,000 Healthcare cost per person per year is therefore$9,000 Switzerland spends 11% of its GDP on Healthcare, The Swiss GDP per-capita is ~$42,000 Healthcare cost per person per year is therefore $4,260 I have chosen Switzerland for comparison for a number of reasons: It has about the same standard of living as the US, It is not one of the truly outstanding countries as regards healthcare (Japan would have made the US look far worse) and, finally, it has a system that superficially looks similar to the US (i.e. Private Insurance companies provide the insurance) We may now do a couple of interesting calculations: It costs $4,740 per person more in the US despite the fact that all Swiss are insured and vast numbers of Americans are not (this latter point is one that Obama-care will correct). For the country as a whole the number is $1.5 trillion a year of additional cost relative to Switzerland. The life expectancy difference between the two countries is 3.7 years For the US to have a life expectancy of 78.6 rather than 82.3 requires ~225,000 extra deaths per year. This is perhaps not surprising since studies of just medical error suggest ~100,000 deaths per year - this does not even begin consider the effect on life expectancy of inadequate or the total the total absence of health insurance.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 00:31:03 +0000
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