Who reports the number...much like any dictatorship...they report what they want not necessarily the truth.
Myths and facts about the Canadian vs US health care systems Myth: The US has a private health-care system, Canada has a state-run health-care system Fact: The public sector (i.e. the taxpayer) spends more on health care in the US than in Canada. There is Medicare, Medicaid and the VA, for starters. Then there are various state plans, subsidies and public hospitals, not to mention the NIH. In Canada, on the other hand, the health care system is essentially private, unlike systems like the NHS in Britain. What we have up here is not "socialized medicine", but a government health insurance system. Doctors are self-employed professionals. Drugs and various other things are outside the government system. Overall, the US spends twice as much per capita on health care as Canada, meaning that after you have footed the same tax bill as we do to support the public parts of your health care system, you then have to go out and buy health insurance on top of that. Myth: The Canadian system is one-size-fits-all; the US system gives people more choice. Fact: I once applied for a job in the US and was asked to choose between four different health-care plans. All of them were worse than what I have in Canada. Here I have a plan with no limts, no deductibles, no copay, and I can see any doctor I want. Myth: Because it's cheaper, the Canadian system is inferior. Those waiting lists, for example ... Fact: A large part of why our system is cheaper is that it's more efficient. You see your doctor, he sends the bill to the government, they pay it, period. The money comes out of your taxes, which you have to pay anyway, so there's no extra paperwork. As to waiting lists, they make for good headlines, but remember William Randolph Hearst's maxim about man bites dog. I needed arthroscopic surgery for my knee last year: I got it within two months, most of the delay being so I could have an MRI scan done. Waiting lists are real, but they're not as much of a problem as they're made out to be. Truth is, everybody's health care system is in a state of crisis, and for the same reasons: aging populations and the ballooning costs of new technology. Everybody ends up rationing, in one way or another: we do it through waiting lists, the US does it by cutting millions of people out altogether. Myth: the Canadian system "levels down", so everyone gets stuck with the same level of care even if they can afford more. Fact: If you've got the money, you can always go anywhere you want and pay for it. In fact, some of our hospitals are among the best in the world, and people come here and pay for it. The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto has a very big rep; the Montreal Neurological Institue ditto. Conversely, if a Canadian with money wants to go to the Mayo clinic or Johns Hopkins, there's nothing stopping him. Although I bet those places have waiting lists. It's true that we could use more doctors. The bottleneck there isn't the government but the doctors' union, which makes it very hard for immigrant doctors to get qualified - even from places like Britain. Also in the 90s we had a right-wing government here in Ontario, the most populous province, which figured that a good way to save money was to close hospitals and cut funding to the med schools. Our federal government also busted its ass to balance the budget in the 90s (we have a budget surplus as a result, imagine that), and skimped on health care to do it. Even so, we have 3.2 hospital beds per 1000 population, compared with 3.0 in the US. We have 1.9 doctors per 1000 compared with 2.8 - a legacy of the above problems, which will eventually get solved. But lest Americans think that 2.8 per 1000 is shit-hot, consider that Sweden has 2.9 doctors and 4.0 hospital beds per 1000, and spends 9.2% of its GDP on health-care compared with 14.6% in the US. For Germany the numbers are 3.6 doctors, 9.1 beds and 10.9%. France: 3.3 doctors, 8.2 beds, 9.7%. Canada spends 9.6%, and our outcomes (life expectancy, infant mortality, 5-year survival rates for most serious diseases) are better than yours. In other words, the US spends a lot more and gets a lot less for it. That's the price of ideology.
The difference between US and Europe is mainly because of religion, as shown in this study from the Journal of Religion and Society: http://moses.creighton.edu/jrs/2005/2005-11.html "The United Statesâ deep social problems are all the more disturbing because the nation enjoys exceptional per capita wealth among the major western nations (Barro and McCleary; Kasman; PEW; UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). Spending on health care is much higher as a portion of the GDP and per capita, by a factor of a third to two or more, than in any other developed democracy (UN Development Programme, 2000, 2004). The U.S. is therefore the least efficient western nation in terms of converting wealth into cultural and physical health."
Its fine to have opinions. We all have them. It would be better if we were all objective, but we have bias. The problem occurs when you misrepresent your subjective point of view, as facts. The majority of the above mentioned facts are just that. I can open a local left wing newspaper and get the same dose of "facts".
The facts I cited are all from The Economist, Pocket World in Figures. Here's a summary table, from the same source Health care spending Country GDP/capita %GD
sorry, pushed send prematurely Health care spending Per 1000 population GDP/ As % $ per capita Hospital Country capita of GDP total gov't Doctors beds USA $37,240 14.6% $5,437 $2,081 2.8 3.0 Canada $27,190 9.6% $2,610 1.9 3.2 France $29,240 9.7% $2,836 3.3 8.2 Germany $29,130 10.9% $3,175 3.6 9.1 Sweden $33,890 9.2% $3,118 2.9 4.0 Japan $33,680 7.9% $2,661 2.0 17.3 Life expectancies, Men Women USA 75.2 80.6 Canada 78.2 83.1 France 76.6 83.5 Germany 76.4 82.1 Sweden 78.6 83.0 Japan 79.0 86.4 The government portion of US health-care spending was taken directly from US budget documents, figures for 2005 (the Economist's figures are for 2004, but the current budget doesn't go that far back). It consists of $580 billion by DHHS (Medicare and Medicaid, mostly), $28 billion for DVA medical programs, and $4 billion in tax breaks and subsidies to support private health-care spending. The $2081 figure does not include state and municipal health care spending. I don't have figures for government health-care spending in Canada, but not all the $2,621 we spend on health care per capita is government spending. Drugs aren't covered by the government, neither such things as most physiotherapy. In addition, people are free to top up their government plan with Blue Cross etc. Bottom line 1: Americans spend more in taxes to support their health-care system than Canadians do - and then they have to go out anf get private health coverage on top of that. Bottom line 2: Take away the excess that the US spends on health care, and the net GDP per capita is about the same as in Sweden or Japan. Bottom line 3: for all the money you spend, the outcomes aren't all that good. The US health care system is mainly an engine for turning doctors into millionaires, supporting an entirely unnecessary insurance industry, and swamping everyone in paperwork. Your labyrinthine system of subsidies and special programs - more bureaucracy, more paperwork: these are the things that cost you. Apart from a few superstars, the average American doctor is no better or worse than any other average doctor, so the standard of care you end up with, for all the money you spend, is no better than anyone else's. Again: ain't ideology wonderful?
dang, that table didnt come out too well. The main thing that isn't clear is that the US spends $5,437 per capita on health care, of which $2,081 is spend by the federal govenment and I don't know how much by state and local governments, whereas Canada spends $2,610 per capita in total, public+private. In France and Japan, total health care spending is also about the same as government spending in the US. In case you guys think you are saving tax money with your stupid irrational ideologially driven system: you're not. By the way, I gather that your definition of "objective facts" is "facts that make you feel good", whereas most people would think that the Economist and the Federal Budget Documents are a pretty good source of actually objective facts. But that's another thing ideology does to people: it makes them mistake their own subjective sense of certainty for the truth, and get all huffy and threatened whenever it's challenged.