Socialized Health Care in the USA

[kandrathe]

Go find your own data set if you don't like this one.

I like the WHO.



There is lots to compare in their data, but this struck me as descriptive of one problem. People in the US spend per capita an equal amount on government supplied health insurance as other similar OECD nations, AND we spend another equal amount on non-government supplied health insurance. I'm not sure that moving from private to public will reduce the over inflated cost of our government supplied health care. So, put another way, as a worker I pay about the same as you do for my own health insurance, and then I pay another amount for someone else. This was the brilliant pyramid scheme devised back in the FDR days, where you pay in SSI and FICA, then when you get old you suck it back out. One problem... Everyone is sucking out more than double what they paid in.

Another interesting fast fact...

Per Capita Spending on Fast Food

1. United States (population 302.2 million) … US$492 per capita
2. Canada (32.9 million) … $387
3. Australia (20.4 million) … $279
4. United Kingdom (60.6 million) … $199
5. South Korea (49 million) … $189
6. Japan… (128 million) $108
7. Germany (82.3 million) … $89.63
8. Brazil (189 million) … $26.28
9. China (1.3 billion) … $7.41
10. India (1.1 billion) … $4.34

Or, McDonald's Restaurants per capita (per 10,000 population)

# 1 United States: ... 0.433
# 2 New Zealand: .... 0.369
# 3 Canada: ........... 0.352
# 4 Australia: .......... 0.349
# 5 Japan: .............. 0.282
# 6 Singapore: ........ 0.273
# 7 Hong Kong: ....... 0.257
# 8 Sweden: ............ 0.252
# 9 United Kingdom: . 0.184
# 10 Denmark: .......... 0.182

Excerpt from the CDC - National Vital Statistics Reports



By my calculations, even when omitting cancer, about 48% of these deaths are due to chronic health issues related to obesity, smoking and alcoholism. The things that Health Care can't fix, but that Healthier Lifestyle choices can fix.