Why change? The US has the 37th best health care system in the world

July 2, 12:17 PMExtreme Weight Loss ExaminerMark Rubi

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Photo courtesy of healthreform.gov

Yes, it is true that the US has the 37th best health care system in the world, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). Fortunately for the ego of the United States, the WHO stopped doing the ranking in 2000 due to the difficulty of compiling the data.

The top ten are France, Italy, San Marino, Andorra, Malta, SIngapore, Spain, Oman, Austria, and Japan.

11-20 are Norway, Portugal, Monaco, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Netherlands, United Kingdom, Ireland, and Switzerland.

21-30 are Belgium, Columbia, Sweden, Cyprus, Germany, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco, and Canada.

31-40 are Finland, Australia, Chile, Denmark, Dominica, Costa Rica, United States of America, Slovenia, Cuba and Brunei.

41-50 are New Zealand, Bahrain, Croatia, Qatar, Kuwait, Barbados, Thailand, Czech Repubic, Malaysia, and Poland

Although our health care system is the ranked behind nearly every other industrialized country, the US can proudly boast that we pay more, a LOT more, than anyone else for our care. Not only does the United States spend more than $1 trillion more per year than anyone else on the planet, we also pay more, a lot more, per capita for our health care.

The World Health Organization says, “The U. S. health system spends a higher portion of its gross domestic product than any other country but ranks 37 out of 191 countries according to its performance.” This puts to rest the tired notion that the American “free market” pushes for the most efficient and least expensive system. In fact, we are the least efficient healthcare in the industrialized world.

The graphs from the Kaiser Family Foundation represents expenditures from the latest worldwide data, from 2003, when we were spending a mere $5,711 dollars a year per person for our health care. That number is now nearly $8,000 a year. Our health care costs, as a percentage of our Gross Domestic Product, have gone from 7% in 1970 to 15.2% in 2003. President Obama, in numerous speeches, points out that at current growth rates the cost of our health care will be 20% of our GDP by 2015.

Only one other country, Switzerland, pays as much as 11% of their GDP for their health care. Two out of three pay less than 10%. Most of the advanced nations in the world see health care as a right, and to quote the well known credit card commercial, “priceless.” In the United States, however, health care is NOT a right, and it does have a price, and a very high price indeed.

For all the money we spend, it would be nice if the health of Americans reflected that expenditure. But are we the healthiest country in the world? No, but we are the fattest. More than 30% of the adult population in the US is now considered medically obese. That 30% more than doubles the rate of most European countries, and triples the rates in France and Denmark.

The health care industry is going to spend billions of dollars to defeat health care reform. Thousands of “Health Scare” stories will be published in our newspapers and magazines. Millionaire lobbyists in high priced suits will be paying lots of visits to your elected officials. Advertisements will be all over the television, radio, and the internet. All of the effort will be made to convince the American public and their elected representatives that reforming health care would be too costly. And it would be too costly… to the health care industry.

The reason the folks in the health care industry are going to spend billions to defeat health care reform is because it works. Time and time again, the best interests of 300 million Americans have been pushed aside for the welfare of the very few. One of the leaders of the fight against reform is Rick Scott. He founded a group called "Conservatives for Patient's Rights," whose motto is "Tell Congress to listen, too."

It's interesting that Scott is promoting patient's rights since he was forced out as head of the Columbia/HCA health care company after the company was found guilty of fraudulent billing of state and federal health plans. Columbia/HCA was fined a record $1.7 billion for their infraction.

That’s because the health care industry believes that they have a “right” to your money. And they believe that they have the “right” to deny you health care if it gets too expensive. The insurance companies don’t want to compete with the government but are adamant that they be “free” to deny coverage to whomever they choose. Medical care, especially in our overpriced system, can be a serious hindrance to profits. That's why they like to dump high cost patients onto the government and US citizens who pay with their taxes.

Americans have long held the attitude that, as Americans, we have “rights.” These “rights” set us apart from much of the world. However, much of the world has caught up and even passed us by recognizing that health care is a basic human right, and not a commodity. If that doesn’t make you think, try this: Failure to fix the health care system will bankrupt this country.