Yes, the estimated 11 millions illegals in the US probably have healthcare statistics like Guatemala.
Dude, being conservative is fine and I am one myself. But being stupid is being stupid. Use your brain, I feel you have one else I would not even reply. The thread is on health care cost. Not infant mortality. And even the numbers on the infant mortality chart correlate almost perfectly with the numbers of Healthcare cost vs life expectancy. So your point did not at all contradict the point on health care cost vs life expectancy. The point here is that the US spends almost twice as much on health care while life expectancy (and infant mortality numbers just so that you are satisfied) numbers look a lot worse than for other leading industrialized nations. That was the main point. If you get hung up on a badly worded sentence down in the article then who cares. It just shows that you did not comprehend or did not want to get the main point here. Again, main point : what benefits does twice the health care cost buy us vs what health care costs buy in other leading industrialized nations. If you think the article tried to make a point that health care costs are much higher in the US than Cambodia or Togo then you should probably work a blue collar job without much brain skill demand.
While I disagree with you regarding quality of Healthcare in countries such as Japan or Germany or Australia vs US it irks me a lot as well that recently a lot of articles don't show the name of the author anymore. Left or right. A lot of articles in the wsj for example do not even label an opinion as such. I think it should be journalism 101 to include the author's name
From what I know about South American and Central American Healthcare (some from personal experience) they would most likely have had access to better healthcare had they stayed in Guatemala. Although if you'r dead, good healthcare isn't worth much.
Actually the "nearly twice as much" comparison comes from comparing the U.S. to the next most expensive healthcare (not surprisingly countries that cut private insurers into the profits*) ,viz., Switzerland and Germany. Compared to most countries, including most of the industrialized countries, the U.S. spends per capita considerably more than twice as much. _______________________ *In Switzerland, and Germany too, I would guess, the health insurers are very tightly regulated, far more tightly than in the U.S. State by State regulation system.
Actually health care cost comparisons are one of the very few areas where working with pure averages does the American health care system way too much justice. On average American Healthcare cost might "only" be twice as much as the second highest cost country. However, that ignores the fact that most of the cost are made up by prescription costs, doctor consultations and small treatment. What really makes a huge difference is that some major procedures in the US are only partly covered or there is an annual cap on cost insurers cover. Even for an insured person a single larger procedure/surgery/cancer treatment can put a major dent into someone's savings. In Germany or Switzerland there are no such caps and surgeries and most everything inpatient is 100% covered without cap. Such major difference does not show up in averages but makes a huge difference in individuals' lives given most have at least one major procedure done in life.
Well, US healthcare system and patients effectively subsidize the rest of the world by paying higher drug prices. In effect we subsidize new drug development.
Bollocks. You just have a government that cares more about the wellbeing of its pharmaceuticals than its citizens. Force pharmaceuticals to price drugs at government mandated caps or get the fuck outta here. They still enjoy rich enough profit margins to continue researching new drugs. It's about regulations and price control in areas where free wheeling capitalism would otherwise get completely out of hands. Works beautifully in Germany. Pharmaceuticals are forced to charge not more than x for each drug. Each doctor is allowed to charge x for each procedure, not more not less. Guess what, there are still pharmaceuticals lining up to do business in Germany and plenty doctors to treat patients. The system works when the government understands its actual role: civil SERVant
Have you had the same surgery in US and elsewhere? Krankenkasse doesn't cover 100% of everything, you will die waiting for the 'special exclusion/inclusion' - you need supplemental insurance for many a treatment there. 50+ thousand Canadians come to US annually for the super expensive treatment, I wonder why. I hear the system in UK is the best of those, but have no personal experience. My wife had to wait for 15 months just to see a specialist for a surgery, then 6 months on a waiting list for Operating Room time in Melbourne, Australia. Instead she flew to US on a Wed, saw the doc on the same week Fri and had the surgery done on the next Tue. A more advanced surgery on top of that. Granted, I had her covered with my policy in advance, and it wasn't a life threatening surgery. When I was leaving Germany, they wouldn't cover your dialysis unless you had a private insurance supplemental policy to Krankenkasse. In the States, every ghetto and welfare bum had it for free with a free taxi ride to the facility and back. Of course, this inflates the RCC (regular and customary charges) for the rest of us. I wonder how many of the propagandists worked in ER and saw the percentages of the bills not paid? Watching the 'youth' walking into ER with their guts out and barely contained by their hands is not a pleasant view. On top of that you know in advance that they 'aint got no money' and may sue you on top of that. So, all of you, who deals with abstraction levels of the propaganda can take a tour of life and death and get your own experience. Parroting BS doesn't take much effort. There is no perfect system, we all know it. Yes, you can still get a well educated doctor making house calls on a cheap in Uruguay, but when you have an existential health threat - better be in Amerika.
No. I had a very complicated high risk surgery a few years back. Frankly when it came to my life, price was never a consideration. I picked one of the best US surgeons. Many foreigners, who could afford did the same, came to the US for treatment. Of course my insurance paid for it but even if insurance did not pay, I would still pick that surgeon.