Sunday, February 28, 2010

The United States fails to measure up

Spot has been harping for a long time [a discussion of Tom Horner on health care and the OECD at the link] on what the OECD could tell us about how U.S. healthcare measures up. The front page, above the fold, opinion piece in today’s Opinion Exchange section in the StarTribune is a graphic compiling a lot of information from the OECD’s health statistics. Here’s the subhed:

The United States spends far more on health care than any other advanced country, yet Americans’ health is mediocre.

The general conclusions? We pay about two and a half times a much per capita as the OECD average for middle of the pack results; the U.S. along with Mexico and Turkey are the only countries in the thirty-country OECD that do not have universal or near-universal coverage. We pay nearly twice the average per capita for drugs.

But we’re number one. Just sit in the lotus position and chant that to yourself, over and over. You’ll finally enter a trance which, while it won’t cure you, will stop your bellyaching over health care, at least for a while.

No comments: