Health Care in the USA

Health care reform is the latest, biggest issue in American politics these days. Why is that? It is because health care is expensive and personal. Since it is such a personal issue for Americans, politicians and pundits have been able to flare the reactions to changes in health care. This makes it extremely important and difficult for voting American's to get the facts straight about how our system really works.

The folks at VisualEconomics.com have put together a visual aid that documents some of the more telling facts about the state of health care and costs around the world. Check out their info here:

http://www.visualeconomics.com/healthcare-costs-around-the-world_2010-03-01/

OK, lets take a look at this information with a critical eye. Of all the countries listed, the United States has the most expensive health care, by far. We clock in at spending just under 16% of our gross domestic product on health care and health insurance. That is $5,711 per capita per year. Keep that in mind that you may not spend that yourself per year, but it is a national average. Also, some people pay way more than that per year.

So health care is expensive in the United States. It is the very best in the world, right? Not according to this information. Now, there are many other statistics we could look at to define who has the best health care in the world, so this is not the definitive ranking, however, the stats they did provide are rather telling. Of the five countries listed (Japan, Germany, Switzerland, United Kingdom, and United States) the United states has the highest infant mortality rate (.68%) and the lowest life expectancy (77). Ouch, guys.

This is why politicians have been trying to reform health care in our country for decades. The ultimate goal is to bring the cost down while bringing quality up. As Americans in a global community, we have a lot of catching up to do. Remember that when you are listening to the talking faces on your TV.

For more information on the state of health care reform in the United Stages, check this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_reform#United_States

Note about the data:

Why do I trust this data? It could have been made up by some nut with Photoshop trying to gin up the "liberal media bias". Odds are against it, their source is the Kaiser Family Foundation; a United States based, non-profit organization that has been doing its best to improve health care in the United States since 1948.