In short, the U.S. spends a lot more money on health care and gets a lot less than the rest of the industrialized world for that money. If you’ve ever chilled in the ER waiting room at, say, Maryland General Hospital, or squabbled with a health insurance provider that keeps upping your premiums about an $800 bill from that same ER visit that involved waiting three, four hours and then getting spun immediately back out the door with only the latest in crutch technology, than this is probably fairly obvious, no? Well, a new study from the the Commonwealth Fund backs up your intuition—of the industrialized world, the U.S. lags severely in quality of care, while spending vastly more on that care.In 2009, the U.S. spent $8,000-per-capita on health care. Japan and New Zealand managed to spend about one-third of that, with Switzerland and Norway topping out at about two-thirds of spending in the U.S. “Accounting for differences in national income, the U.S. still far outspent the other countries, dedicating more than 17 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to health care compared with 12 percent or less in all other countries,” the study reports. Meanwhile, particularly in terms of preventable things like deaths from asthma and amputation due to diabetes — see also: chronic illnesses people don’t see doctors about because they can’t afford it — the U.S. is totally winning the race.“The study shows that U.S. health care spending has been consuming an ever-larger share of GDP over the last 30 years, from 9-percent in 1980 to 17-percent in 2009, increasing at a faster rate than in other countries,” the study’s lead author, David Squires, said in an interview. He’s hopeful the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) can help calm the situation down. But, if it gets demolished by the Supreme Court in June — which seems likely — there’s nothing to keep costs from continuing on this upward curve. (Don’t expect a replacement coming anytime soon from whatever mess results from next November’s elections.)So, in another 30 years or so, we’ll be spending over one-third of our GNP on health care. Your kids will be spending about half of GDP. With that outsized share not going to eternal life or even better health care, but various industry stakeholders.At least there’s nothing Squires can see to keep costs from inflating further. “The ACA offers a truly historic and comprehensive set of tools to improve quality and control costs, though many of the changes envisioned by the legislation are already underway in advance of the reforms being implemented,” he said. “One thing you find looking at other countries’ health systems is that each of them is pursuing a high performance health system in their own way. We in the U.S. will find an American way.” Which sounds shill-y, yes, but the data back him up.There’s a couple of reasons beyond health care just costing more that might have a bit to do with high spending in the U.S. — higher obesity rates and more frequent use of expensive technology than other industrialized countries. Though the study suggests that higher obesity rates could be offset somewhat by lower smoking rates in the states. Mainly, things just cost a lot more in the U.S., and that has everything to do with a barely restricted private health care system characterized by Kafka-esque administration, no transparency, price discrimination, and doctors turning on machines soley for the sake of billing your insurance company or you, not actually for you or your health.Such an expensive health system creates an enormous financial strain and can pose a barrier to accessing care. For many U.S. households, health care has become increasingly unaffordable. In 2010, four of 10 adults went without care because of costs and the number of either uninsured or "underinsured" (i.e., people with health coverage that does not adequately protect them from high medical expenses) increased to more than 80 million. A 2007 survey in five states found that difficulty paying medical bills contributed to 62 percent of all bankruptcies, up 50 percent from 2001. For the average worker with employer-based health insurance, growth in premiums and cost-sharing has largely erased wage gains over the past decade.By the way, Japan is the winner in this study — very low costs, high quality, the longest life expectancy in the world. Let’s do that.Reach this writer at michaelb@motherboard.tv.
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