Monoculturalist
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- Sep 28, 2024
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I'm not against socialized medicine if we were to mimic the French system, but we'd also need to make some other changes. First of all, we'd have to stop being the world's police and reduce the military a lot. Second, we'd have to stop subsidizing the use of corn syrup in everything and ban a lot of the same substances that aren't allowed in food in Europe. We'd probably also have to find a way to push more of the public to exercise.Countries with socialized medicine have lower infant mortality rates and higher life expectancies than the United States. Health care in those countries is less expensive than in the United States. Health care in the United States is more expensive than in other affluent democracies because much of the money spent on health care goes to health insurance companies.
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US spends most on health care but has worst health outcomes among high-income countries, new report finds
By Jacqueline Howard, CNN
5 minute read
Published 12:01 AM EST, Tue January 31, 2023
CNN —
The United States spends more on health care than any other high-income country but still has the lowest life expectancy at birth and the highest rate of people with multiple chronic diseases, according to a new report from The Commonwealth Fund, an independent research group.
The report, released Tuesday, also says that compared with peer nations, the US has the highest rates of deaths from avoidable or treatable causes and the highest maternal and infant death rates.
“Americans are living shorter, less healthy lives because our health system is not working as well as it could be,” the report’s lead author, Munira Gunja, senior researcher for The Commonwealth Fund’s International Program in Health Policy and Practice Innovation, said in a news release. “To catch up with other high-income countries, the administration and Congress would have to expand access to health care, act aggressively to control costs, and invest in health equity and social services we know can lead to a healthier population.”
People in the US see doctors less often than those in most other countries, which is probably related to the US having a below-average number of practicing physicians, according to the report, and the US is the only country among those studied that doesn’t have universal health coverage. In 2021 alone, 8.6% of the US population was uninsured.
“Not only is the U.S. the only country we studied that does not have universal health coverage, but its health system can seem designed to discourage people from using services,” researchers at the Commonwealth Fund, headquartered in New York, wrote in the report. “Affordability remains the top reason why some Americans do not sign up for health coverage, while high out-of-pocket costs lead nearly half of working-age adults to skip or delay getting needed care.”
Part of the reason the French system works is because their public is healthier than ours overall. This was true even before they put into place their modern healthcare system. Since we have a rather obese population with a high incidence of things like diabetes, converting to a socialized system would be rather rough in the beginning.
All that aside, the French system is one of the better ones also because of its private sector. They have access to cheap care for basic needs but can still go to a private hospital for something time-sensitive. That's the ideal. Public systems are cheaper but tend to be less prompt, whereas private systems are faster but more expensive.
