When it comes to healthcare spending and healthcare outcomes, Americans are getting a raw deal. Unfortunately, Republican healthcare proposals offer few serious reforms, beyond Medicaid block grants, to decrease costs and increase quality.
Whether Obamacare is replaced or not, we’re heading for many more years of low-quality healthcare. World Health Organization comparisons between major economically-developed nations tell the tale.
First, life expectancy.
Averaged between men and women, United States life expectancy is 79.3 years of age. In Germany, however, it is 81 years, in Britain it is 81.2 years, in Canada it is 82.2 years, and in France it is 82.4 years. Leading the way is Japan, which at 83.7 years, has more than four years on U.S. life expectancy. To be clear, this is partially a cultural problem — We spend a lot of money on senior healthcare, but we also eat badly and exercise too infrequently.
But that’s just the start. U.S. infant mortality rates are also disgustingly high. For every 1,000 births we lose 6.5 babies. Again, the Japanese lead the way with less than half the U.S. rate at 2.7 deaths per 1000. The other nations on our list also do better. Germany’s rate is nearly half ours, at 3.7. The U.K. stands at 4.2, France at 4.3, and Canada at 4.9.
Think on those statistics. For every 1000 births, America loses at least 1.6 more children than our major economic counterparts. In part, this is a result of greater U.S. medical efforts to save premature babies. But it’s also a consequence of inadequate access to affordable post-natal healthcare. This is especially true for young, low-income mothers. Provision of postnatal care is one area of Medicaid that should be expanded, not cut.
To be fair, it’s not all bad. When it comes to cancer and heart attack survival rates, the U.S. leads all the aforementioned nations.
Yet for this privilege, and the pathetic rates in other healthcare outcomes, we pay a great deal of money.
In fact, we pay an insane amount of money.
Consider our list of nations in the context of World Bank statistics on percent of GDP spent on healthcare. Excluding the U.S., France is top, spending 11.5 percent of GDP on healthcare. Next up is Germany at 11.3 percent, then Canada at 10.4 percent, then Japan at 10.2 percent, then the U.K. at 9.1percent.
In the U.S., we spend a staggering 17.1 percent of GDP on healthcare each year. To put that in perspective, were the U.S. to spend France’s 11.5 percent figure, we would save $1 trillion a year. That’s enough to go from a federal budget deficit to a healthy surplus.
Still, things are set to get even worst. A 2017 government assessment suggests we’ll be spending 20 percent of GDP on healthcare by 2025. By 2016 U.S. GDP figures, that’s an extra $539 billion each year.
I strongly oppose socialized medicine, but the data is a wakeup call for all of us. For liberals, the statistics prove that infinite spending does not produce better outcomes. They would bury the nation in debt by throwing ever-increasing sums at Medicaid. For conservatives, the statistics prove the current healthcare market is broken and that human morality does not begin and end with preventing abortion.
Fortunately, the roots of our excessive healthcare spending and inadequate outcomes aren’t that complicated. With more emphasis on personal responsibility and cost reductions, we can start to move in the right direction.
