Healthcare quiz

[Chris]

Healthcare is a major concern to people around the globe. While many poor countries are struggling to provide even basic health services, industrialized countries are striving to keep their high levels of healthcare affordable. Which of the following countries had the largest healthcare expenditures as a percentage of GDP?

ANSWERS
A. United States B. Germany C. Japan D. France

A. United States is correct.

Healthcare spending in the United States amounted to $1.9 trillion in 2004, equaling 16 percent of US gross domestic product. In other words, $16 out of every $100 in US economic activity were spent in the healthcare sector -- the highest ratio among industrialized countries.

The share of US GDP dedicated to healthcare spending more than doubled over the past 35 years, increasing from 7.2 percent of GDP in 1970 to 16 percent in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The US government estimates that healthcare spending will account for 18.7 percent of GDP by 2014.

B. Germany is not correct.

Germany's healthcare system is one of the costliest in the world today, consuming 11.1 percent of GDP. Still, it is about 30 percent less costly than the US system.

Given this cost differential, it is all the more astounding that the German healthcare system provides coverage for all but 0.3 percent of the population, while in the United States about 16 percent of the population, or 46 million people, are uninsured.

C. Japan is not correct.

Japan's share of GDP allocated to healthcare spending was 7.9 percent in 2004. Remarkably, that is less than the 8.8 percentage point increase which the United States encountered in its healthcare spending between 1970 (when healthcare costs stood at 7.2 percent of GDP) and 2004 (16 percent of GDP).

On average, the 30 countries that are members of the OECD spent about 6.7 percent of their GDP on healthcare in 2004, less than the 7.2 percent level the United States reached in 1970.

D. France is not correct.

In 2004, France's healthcare costs equaled about 10.1 percent of GDP, less than Germany's, but more than the Netherlands (9.8 percent) and the United Kingdom (7.7 percent of GDP).

One of the most puzzling aspects of international comparisons is that higher healthcare outlays do not necessarily correspond with better outcomes. For example, the United States spends more than twice as much on healthcare as Canada, yet Canadians have a higher life expectancy than Americans.

Global health - The Boston Globe

 

[Oddball]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

 

[KittenKoder]

Stupid thing is that who pays for it doesn't change the cost ...


... of course you know this, that's why you have to lie about it.

 

[elvis]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

that chris is a mental midget.

 

[KittenKoder]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

It proves that he's an idiot.

 

[Chris]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

 

[Oddball]

I get it just fine....You're a platitude and slogan spewing imbecile, who is expecting that the very entity which has driven those costs up is going to bring them down.

But that's your problem, not mine.

 

[Political Junky]

Healthcare is a major concern to people around the globe. While many poor countries are struggling to provide even basic health services, industrialized countries are striving to keep their high levels of healthcare affordable. Which of the following countries had the largest healthcare expenditures as a percentage of GDP?

ANSWERS
A. United States B. Germany C. Japan D. France

A. United States is correct.

Healthcare spending in the United States amounted to $1.9 trillion in 2004, equaling 16 percent of US gross domestic product. In other words, $16 out of every $100 in US economic activity were spent in the healthcare sector -- the highest ratio among industrialized countries.

The share of US GDP dedicated to healthcare spending more than doubled over the past 35 years, increasing from 7.2 percent of GDP in 1970 to 16 percent in 2004, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The US government estimates that healthcare spending will account for 18.7 percent of GDP by 2014.

B. Germany is not correct.

Germany's healthcare system is one of the costliest in the world today, consuming 11.1 percent of GDP. Still, it is about 30 percent less costly than the US system.

Given this cost differential, it is all the more astounding that the German healthcare system provides coverage for all but 0.3 percent of the population, while in the United States about 16 percent of the population, or 46 million people, are uninsured.

C. Japan is not correct.

Japan's share of GDP allocated to healthcare spending was 7.9 percent in 2004. Remarkably, that is less than the 8.8 percentage point increase which the United States encountered in its healthcare spending between 1970 (when healthcare costs stood at 7.2 percent of GDP) and 2004 (16 percent of GDP).

On average, the 30 countries that are members of the OECD spent about 6.7 percent of their GDP on healthcare in 2004, less than the 7.2 percent level the United States reached in 1970.

D. France is not correct.

In 2004, France's healthcare costs equaled about 10.1 percent of GDP, less than Germany's, but more than the Netherlands (9.8 percent) and the United Kingdom (7.7 percent of GDP).

One of the most puzzling aspects of international comparisons is that higher healthcare outlays do not necessarily correspond with better outcomes. For example, the United States spends more than twice as much on healthcare as Canada, yet Canadians have a higher life expectancy than Americans.

Global health - The Boston Globe

The Boston Globe has done excellent coverage of the healthcare problem for some time. Thanks.

 

[Political Junky]

I get it just fine....You're a platitude and slogan spewing imbecile, who is expecting that the very entity which has driven those costs up is going to bring them down.

But that's your problem, not mine.

Private insurance has driven the costs up, who did you think did it?

 

[elvis]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

You lie.

 

[Political Junky]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

You lie.

The facts make you the liar.

 

[elvis]

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

You lie.

The facts make you the liar.

You like waiting hours instead of minutes? You like having a shortage of doctors and medical equipment? Follow Kirky's plan, numbnuts.

 

[Political Junky]

You lie.

The facts make you the liar.

You like waiting hours instead of minutes? You like having a shortage of doctors and medical equipment? Follow Kirky's plan, numbnuts.

Like I said, dumb wingnuts believe that propaganda that you just posted, about long waits and old equipment, in spite of the facts.
You're the insurance company's whore.

 

[elvis]

The facts make you the liar.

You like waiting hours instead of minutes? You like having a shortage of doctors and medical equipment? Follow Kirky's plan, numbnuts.

Like I said, dumb wingnuts believe that propaganda that you just posted, about long waits and old equipment, in spite of the facts.
You're the insurance company's whore.

and where do you get your propaganda, fuckhead? Michael Moore? How does it feel to be that fat fuck's whore?

 

[auditor0007]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

While healthcare costs are extremely high today in the US, this is nothing compared to existing projections. At our current rate, healthcare will eat up 37% of GDP by 2050 and 49% of GDP by 2082. This on top of a burden of debt that will cost taxpayers 3% to 5% of GDP just to service the debt. Another 25% of GDP to run the Federal Government, and another 7% to run state and local govenments, and that will all add up to over 80% of GDP.

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/87xx/doc8758/MainText.3.1.shtml

Guess our grandkids are fucked. But hey, we won't be around, so why should we give a shit?

 

[Oddball]

Our grandkids are fucked if we let the same douchebags who've bankrupted Medicare/Medicaid and OASI get their mitts on all medical services.

 

[Chris]

Our grandkids are fucked if we let the same douchebags who've bankrupted Medicare/Medicaid and OASI get their mitts on all medical services.

The insurance companies, the liability lawyers, and Big Pharma have driven up medical costs.

A single payer system is simpler and cheaper and morally right.

 

[elvis]

Our grandkids are fucked if we let the same douchebags who've bankrupted Medicare/Medicaid and OASI get their mitts on all medical services.

The insurance companies, the liability lawyers, and Big Pharma have driven up medical costs.

A single payer system is simpler and cheaper and morally right.

keep dreaming, jackass.

 

[Bern80]

Americans spend more money on shelter, clotting, recreation, and a slew of other things too.

So, what the hell is your idiotic quiz supposed to prove??

You just don't get it, do you?

We spend 16% of our GDP on healthcare. That number will soon be 18%.

No one else spends anywhere near that percentage. Why? Because they have single payer systems which are cheaper and more efficient. The numbers don't lie.

You really are a mental midget. WE ARE NOT OTHER COUNTRIES. You aren't comaring apples to apples. I also kinda thought monopolies were a bad thing. Government telling you how to live your life so they can determine what they will and won't pay for is not the answer. You libs are such cop outs. Instead actually thinking and trying to come up with a solution, you constantly take the easy road and go to government to save you. Even though said government has show it's incompetence time and time again you want them to have control over your healthcare. FUCKING BRILLIANT.

 

[Navy1960]

The notion is politically significant. The U.S.’s poor ranking in life expectancy is a key tenet in filmmaker Michael Moore’s excoriation of American health care in “Sicko,” and in calls by reformers for broader access to medical care — calls being heeded by the leading Democratic presidential candidates. Yet the U.S. has an unusually high rate of deaths from accidents and homicides, compared with other developed countries. (For instance, transport-accident deaths are three times higher in the U.S. than in the U.K., according to the World Health Organization, while the murder rate is 10 to 12 times greater.) Subtract out these deaths and suicide — where the U.S. is at or below average — and the American health-care system doesn’t look so bad. Hence, the adjusted life-expectancy rankings have been mentioned in several conservative publications critical of health-care reform, including National Review and City Journal.

But there are several shortcomings to this analysis. First, death rates from accidents, homicides and suicide are dependent not only on how many people suffer injuries from such events but also on how effective the health-care system is at averting death in borderline cases (a point I made in a column earlier this year). Various factors influence that success rate; one of them is the distance emergency services must travel to reach victims, in which population density comes into play and the relatively spread-out U.S. is at a disadvantage.

Also, the authors didn’t directly adjust for these deaths. Instead, Dr. Ohsfeldt and Dr. Schneider performed a statistical calculation, called a regression, to estimate how much mortality rates from homicide, suicide and accident influenced mortality, on average, from 1980-1999 in 29 of the 30 developed countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (they skipped tiny Luxembourg). Then they adjusted life-expectancy stats to get a rough handle on what life expectancy would have been like had the rates of these deaths been the same in all 29 countries. Their result: The U.S. would have ranked first, at 76.9 years of life expectancy — an increase of 1.6 years. Meanwhile, Japan fell from 78.7 years to 76 years, indicating it had been benefiting inordinately from low rates of accidental deaths and homicides. (You can see a partial list at this blog.)

Does the U.S. Lead in Life Expectancy? - The Numbers Guy - WSJ

While I have never doubted the need for cost reductions and reforms in healthcare, leading to more availability of healthcare and coverage for those that need and want it. To use the WHO statistics to show that the US is somehow worse off in healthcare than other nations is a complete farce. Even Michael Moore admitted in a recent interview with ABC that when adjusted for accidents and murders in this nation , the US healthcare system ranks at or near the top. However this points to one of several issues that really cause healthcare costs to rise and all those should be addressed and to simply advocate "blanket coverage" as a fix all for every problem with addressing each and every issue that causes prices to rise in the first place will lead to a massive debt that our nation will take on with little or no result with the exception of taking us further down the path of soon being a nation that will have to follow the Ca. lead of issuing IOU's.