Ted, we have the highest health care costs in the world because of a number of factors, but one of them is quality of health care. To those who are employed or other can afford it, America has some of the highest quality health care in the world.
In certain areas, we are the most advanced. That's true. However, in overall performance, the Germans, the Canadians, the French and others can match us. And their health care costs per capita are considerably less than others.
My German friends pay the same monthly premium as I do. However they have no deductible.....mine is $5K. Mine doesn't cover any prescriptions....their's covers all prescriptions. There are no caps on their coverage....there are caps on mine. They can't be denied for a pre existing condition.....we can be denied. That's a few of the differences. One of my German friends just had a baby. The cost came to over 15K Euros......they did not pay once cent of it. On top of all that, their premium has stayed the same for the past ten years without a change of coverage. The only way I can match their premium is by continually giving up coverage.
For goodness sake, people from countries with socialized medicine come here for treatment. That includes Canada, France, Russia, and Japan.
So? In certain specialities Americans go to Germany and France. Before she died, F. Fawcett was going to Germany for special cancer treatments that she couldn't get here. If you told a German that their medicine is inferior to ours, they would laugh in your face. And I would have to join them.
We rank rather low when it comes to equality of distribution, though. That's why the WHO rates us so low. Most of their rating is based on said equality.
That's still another issue. We only give health coverage to those people who can afford its high cost. Frankly, not a very nice attitude.
There are good reasons why all industrialized nations except the US and many third world nations provide their people universal health care. It should make you stop and think. |
