Nick900 Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 The UK has a completely socialist healthcare system, the US less so. However these stats show: UK: http://www.who.int/countries/gbr/en/ Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2013) 3,311 Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2013) 9.1 US: http://www.who.int/countries/usa/en/ Total expenditure on health per capita (Intl $, 2013) 9,146 Total expenditure on health as % of GDP (2013) 17.1 I'm not very familiar with the US medical system (being from the UK) and I was wondering how the government is involved in the US system and what is the cause of these numbers? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fezjones Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 higher quality care in the US with more advanced equipment and procedures. But most importantly, a larger advanced age population with medicare, basically a massive government subsidy for the portion of the population that is the most sickly. We might have the largest old age population in the world outside of India, china, pakistan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crallask Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 Also keep in mind that people who aren't covered in the US under insurance can slap those costs onto other people by visiting the Emergency rooms thus foisting the costs onto other people. (The expenses don't go away.) Stef has quite a few vids on this subject as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thomasio Posted January 17, 2016 Share Posted January 17, 2016 I don't think the UK system has anything to do with socialism, after all the UK government is (like ALL governments in Europe) right wing authoritarian. Aside of the definition of what socialism is or should be, the UK system is simply an authoritarian system, enforcing taxes on all citizens out of which health care for all citizens is provided for free. The "free" becomes a VERY relative term, if you include the fact of how much tax they charge from everyone to keep this going. The huge downside of this state organized system is the enormous waiting times you have when you get sick, I don't know the numbers, but I heard something about a huge amount of doctors appointments missed by patients due to the fact they had to wait so long that either the problem doesn't exists anymore or it's too late for treatment. On the upside a state controlled system is far cheaper, because the state also enforces low prices on the pharma industry. The US have the by far most expensive system in the world, which on first view and before Obamacare limits access to the medical system to those who can afford it, which explains why there aren't these extreme waiting times like in the UK, but that's not the main reason for the high prices. The pharma industry in the US has managed to abuse laws to avoid competition through (not sure about the correct english word in pharma terms) copyright protection on drugs. Once one single producer has the exclusive rights to produce a specific medicine, they are free to set whatever price they like and obviously they do set prices exceeding the wildest phantasies. In a free world, neither of these two would apply. A free market, including competition, would provide a free system, way cheaper than any state enforced system could be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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