The Nineteenth Hole

The United States spends the most of any nation on earth on healthcare – 16% of its Gross Domestic Product and $2.4 trillion a year. We hear politicians brag about how we have the best healthcare available on earth. We hear them rag on the failures of “public option” national healthcare programs in places like France and Canada. Maybe they’re right, but then, I’d like to see exactly what they base those opinions on… certainly not statistics.

The Commonwealth Fund, Health Affairs, World Health Organization tracks one statistic that is particularly indicative of the relative effectiveness of a country’s healthcare system: preventable deaths. And among the top 19 industrialized nations on earth, the United States is dead last. We have 110 preventable deaths per 100,000 while France (which has the highest positive ranking on the list) has 65, and Canada (number 6) has 77 per 100,000. I certainly don’t mind touting our wonderful system, but lying about how wonderful it is doesn’t help matters. Saying you’re number one when in fact you lost the race in 19^th place is really uncool.

So those politicians are busy trying to explain away the obvious “statistical proof of failure” that the above numbers represent. We have more gunshot and car crash deaths, they argue, but the numbers still do not hold true even when corrected for this violent anomaly. The October 6^th Washington Post: “Although gun and auto fatality rates are higher here than they are in most wealthy nations, the statistics underscore more complex, fundamental challenges, say physicians, economists and other experts who track health-care systems across the world.

‘Chronic illnesses are a much bigger driver of health-care costs’ than trauma cases such as vehicle crashes and gunshots, said Robert Shesser, head of emergency medicine at George Washington University. ‘Because of our wacky system, some people are bankrupted or avoiding care and some are getting too much care -- they're hogging care.’

North Dakota Senator Kent Conrad (a Democrat who is on the Senate Finance Committee): “‘All of these countries have much lower costs than we do,’ he said, pointing to a giant blue chart showing the United States in last place. ‘And they have higher quality outcomes than ours.’” The Post

So let’s rephrase our bragging: America has by far the best healthcare system on earth if you can afford it. And if you take out those at the top of the American economic food chain from those statistics, how much worse do you think our international standing on the “preventable deaths” list would be?

I’m Peter Dekom, and we really have to stop lying to ourselves!