Best Healthcare In The World?
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Health CareThen why don’t we have the longest life expectancy and why are we paying more than $1,500 per person than any other country in the world?
I wonder what Japan’s secret is. Wow.
Here’s another way to look at it.
Also, note that life expectancy in Cuba is equal to ours, yet they spend next to nothing. This could be the result of incorrect census data or their free national healthcare which could incent people to get preventive care.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008 and is filed under Health Care. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:11 am
Without defending our healthcare system in any way, I question whether these statistics take into account the amount residents of other nations spend in healthcare taxes. I also wonder what the average life expectancy is of U.S. residents who’ve lived here from birth — our high immigrant population from poor countries (people who had inadequate or no healthcare earlier in life) must have some effect on our average life expectancy.
Still, there is no doubt that our system is terribly ineffecient. We have a ridiculous system that is neither free market nor socialized.
January 2nd, 2008 at 10:30 am
ASC asks the right questions. Also, life expectancy is not always the best way to measure healthcare either. the scale in the graph generally differs only by about 2 to 3 years. Denmark and Sweden have similar societies, they both spend about the same, but are on opposite ends of the life-expectancy timeline.
Perhaps a study should be done on survival rates for cancer, infectious disease, injury rehabilitation, ect.
January 2nd, 2008 at 12:20 pm
Don’t sully this great blog by putting any positive spin on Cuban health care.
Misinformation, corruption, indentured servitude (the regime uses doctors as a bartering commodity, forcing them to leave the country and work on someone else’s sick while their family suffers), forced abortions, and pure apartheid does not make for a good healthcare system.
January 2nd, 2008 at 3:09 pm
Great graphs. I knew we spent an incredible about money (not because we WANT to) on health care here, and especially in this case a picture does speak a thousand words.
I’ve never been to Japan, but I can only surmise it’s due to their Eastern culture of traditional uses of herbs and spices for most ailments. I’d get behind natural supplements than some manufactured syrup concocted in a laboratory. I wish we would embrace more eastern philosophies in this regard.
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Who’s paying $1,500 (yearly I suppose) on healthcare? Let me know, I’ll sign up at once! Socialized medicine is not what it’s bragged out to be.
Alan said it right, PEOPLE not the government pay for healthcare in countries like Cuba or Europe.
Why don’t you ask a transplanted Cuban how wonderful things are under Fidel?
January 2nd, 2008 at 8:23 pm
On the same note ~
Life expectancy is more related to diet and exercise than healthcare.