11 Amazing facts that americans don't know about healthcare
1) The united states has the most expensive healthcare system in the world. Our nation spends about $7,300 per person on healthcare every year, nearly 2.5 times the average for developed countries, which is $2,964, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
2) Another perceived cause of higher health care costs in the United States is that malpractice suits increase the prices charged by doctors and cause them to practice defensive medicine, which occurs when doctors order extra tests or procedures to reduce their risk of being sued. The researchers compared the number of malpractice claims and awards in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom and found that while U.S. citizens sue more often, the actual settlements from all four countries were comparable.
3) According to the study authors, defensive medicine probably contributes more to higher health spending than malpractice premiums, but determining which tests and second opinions should be defined as defensive medicine is less clear. The highest estimate for costs of defensive medicine in the United States is only 9 percent and many experts believe this number is too high.
(2,3 are from a recent study done byJohns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health)
4) An estimated 2 million babies die within their first 24 hours each year worldwide and the United States has the second worst newborn mortality rate in the developed world.
5) American babies are three times more likely to die in their first month as children born in Japan, and newborn mortality is 2.5 times higher in the United States than in Finland, Iceland or Norway, Save the Children researchers found
6)Only Latvia, with six deaths per 1,000 live births, has a higher death rate for newborns than the United States, which is tied near the bottom of industrialized nations with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia with five deaths per 1,000 births. (This one has to be a joke! We are next to Latvia!)
7) 1. Canada's health care system is "socialized medicine."
False. In socialized medical systems, the doctors work directly for the state. In Canada (and many other countries with universal care), doctors run their own private practices, just like they do in the US. The only difference is that every doctor deals with one insurer, instead of 150
8) Doctors are hurt financially by single-payer health care.
Doctors in Canada do make less than their US counterparts. But they also have lower overhead, and usually much better working conditions.
9) Wait times in Canada are horrendous.
True and False again -- it depends on which province you live in, and what's wrong with you. Canada's health care system runs on federal guidelines that ensure uniform standards of care, but each territory and province administers its own program. Some provinces don't plan their facilities well enough; in those, you can have waits. Some do better. As a general rule, the farther north you live, the harder it is to get to care, simply because the doctors and hospitals are concentrated in the south. But that's just as true in any rural county in the U.S.
10) You have to wait forever to get a family doctor.
False for the vast majority of Canadians, but True for a few. Again, it all depends on where you live. I live in suburban Vancouver, and there are any number of first-rate GPs in my neighborhood who are taking new patients. If you don't have a working relationship with one, but need to see a doctor now, there are 24-hour urgent care clinics in most neighborhoods that will usually get you in and out on the minor stuff in under an hour
11) You don't get to choose your own doctor.
Scurrilously False. Somebody, somewhere, is getting paid a lot of money to make this kind of stuff up. The cons love to scare the kids with stories about the government picking your doctor for you, and you don't get a choice. Be afraid! Be very afraid!
For the record: Canadians pick their own doctors, just like Americans do. And not only that: since it all pays the same, poor Canadians have exactly the same access to the country's top specialists that rich ones do.
The Deloitte Center for Health Solutions surveyed 14,000 people in six countries, asking them to grade their own healthcare system from A to F. The standardized results allow comparisons among all six countries
Here's how all six countries fared.
If you're expecting to hear that the United States scored worst, then surprise! America was only second worst. Germany got the lowest grades, with just 18 percent of Germans giving their healthcare system an A or B. In the United States, 22 percent of respondents gave the healthcare system an A or B. Switzerland got the highest marks, with 66 percent of people giving the system top grades; France was next, at 63 percent.
The survey data are from Deloitte. Also included are cost data from the OECD, to give a sense of who's getting the most satisfaction per healthcare dollar:
Canada: Percent rating the healthcare system A or B: 46 percent; D or F: 15 percent; annual healthcare spending per person: $3,895
France: A or B: 63 percent; D or F: 12 percent; spending: $3,601
Germany: A or B: 18 percent; D or F: 44 percent; spending: $3,588
Switzerland: A or B: 66 percent; D or F: 14 percent; spending: $4,417
United Kingdom: A or B: 32 percent; D or F: 20 percent; spending: $2,992
United States: A or B: 22 percent; D or F: 38 percent; spending: $7,290
(In regards to your opinion on the UK heatlh care)
The Economist recently derided American critics of Britain's National Health System for creating a bogus bogeyman meant to scare Americans anxious about reform. "Painting an inaccurate picture of the British system . . . helps blind Americans to weaknesses in their own one," the magazine wrote. "The NHS costs half as much per person as the American system costs. Yet it delivers results which are on some plausible measures actually superior. . . . And it does this while avoiding the disgrace that so shames America, of leaving around 46 million people, some 15 percent of its population, without any form of health insurance."
But don't bother asking the Brits about their own system. What do they know?
Facts that was exluded from the post "10 surprising facts about american healthcare"
1) We find a somewhat higher incidence of chronic health conditions in the U.S.
2) In Finland, France, Spain and Sweden, about 73% of breast cancer patients were cured, while the proportion was less than 60% in Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia.
3) Why isn't prostate or lung cancer listed in your ten amazing facts? You are aware those are the top two cancers amoung males in the US, making them the most common as "fact # 1" says. (CDC). For women it is breast cancer, but it's not higher then prostate cancer.
There is more I was only on their 6th source, but they pretty much put in there everything you want to hear. And streched the truth as far as possible without becoming a lie.
6. Middle Class Tax Hike - The Baucus bill would impose a new sales tax on drugs and medical devices and a new federal excise tax on insurance plans that exceed $8,000 for an individual and $21,000 for a family. These taxes will ultimately be passed down to the consumer, putting many middle class families on the receiving end of a tax hike
That is not a tax, that is the free market(a.k.a "The big guy s**ttin on the little guy") that you want the Gov't to stay out of.
5.No Privacy! They will collect detailed health insurance information on Americans Do you want to guess where all those statictics you just posted came from? So if we have privacy now, that means everything you just posted is a false. So take your pick.
1. President Obama said that “this was the worst economy since the great depression.” FALSE! It was the worst economy since the Jimmy Carter era
That all depends on the criteria you are using to classify "worst".
