Despite Americans paying nearly double that of other nations, the US fares poorly in list of 10 countries

Despite Americans paying nearly double that of other nations, the US fares poorly in list of 10 countries

The United States health system ranked dead last in an international comparison of 10 peer nations, according to a new report by the Commonwealth Fund.

In spite of Americans paying nearly double that of other countries, the system performed poorly on health equity, access to care and outcomes.

“I see the human toll of these shortcomings on a daily basis,” said Dr Joseph Betancourt, the president of the Commonwealth Fund, a foundation with a focus on healthcare research and policy.

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The fund said the US would need to expand insurance coverage and make “meaningful” improvements on the amount of healthcare expenses patients pay themselves; minimize the complexity and variation in insurance plans to improve administrative efficiency; build a viable primary care and public health system; and invest in social wellbeing, rather than thrust problems of social inequity onto the health system.

  • CileTheSane
    1·
    5 hours ago

    A capitalistic system will maximize for one thing and one thing only: Profit.

    If anything else improves, such as service, cost, or wait times, it will only by as a byproduct of increasing profit. If there are easier, faster, or cheaper ways of increasing profit (such as cutting staff and having customers patients wait longer) then those will be done instead. The FDA exists because otherwise capitalistic companies will put customers health and lives in danger because it is more profitable to do so and pay out potential lawsuits than it is to make sure safety regulations are in place in the first place.

    The only way to maximize something other the profit, such as customer service, is through regulation. That is why monopolies are illegal: if a customer doesn’t have a choice you can charge them as much as you want, and take as long as you want, and perform as poorly as you want, and they still have to use your service because they have no other choice. When a customer patient needs to go to the hospital they don’t have the luxury of “shopping around”, they have a medical emergency and need help now. So without regulation a profit motivated hospital can charge whatever they want, especially considering nobody discusses prices before doing life saving operations.

    “lack of market freedom” is not the reason 1 Tylenol pill at a hospital costs you $15.
    “Excessive regulation” is not the reason patients are charged $40 for crying.
    “Lack of competition” is not the reason asking for an itemized bill will save you money. “It’s estimated that about 60 percent of medical bills that are issued have errors” (I can’t think of any other industry that would consider that acceptable.)

    What specific regulations would you remove from hospitals, and how would the absence of those regulations directly help customers patients?

    The US is last place in the linked article while having the most profit driven hospital system of the countries compared. Making it even more profit driven is not going to improve the thing customers patients need improved.