Krugman on US Health Care

Paul Krugman takes on health care in the United States and explains how insane and cruel it really is. (available at Truthout) The major source of health care coverage for Americans is employer paid insurance.

Between 2000 and 2004 the number of Americans under 65 rose by 10 million. Yet the number of nonelderly Americans covered by employment-based insurance fell by 4.9 million.

Spending more for less:

In 2002 the United States spent $5,267 per person on health care. Canada spent $2,931; Germany spent $2,817; Britain spent only $2,160. Yet the United States has lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than any of these countries.

And remember nearly everyone in Canada, Germany and Britain are covered while the number of people covered in the US is actually on the decline.
So why you ask? Krugman tells us.

Unlike other advanced countries, we treat access to health care as a privilege rather than a right. And this attitude turns out to be inefficient as well as cruel.

The U.S. system is much more bureaucratic, with much higher administrative costs, than those of other countries, because private insurers and other players work hard at trying not to pay for medical care. And our fragmented system is unable to bargain with drug companies and other suppliers for lower prices.

It doesn't have to be this way.

Taiwan, which moved 10 years ago from a U.S.-style system to a Canadian-style single-payer system, offers an object lesson in the economic advantages of universal coverage. In 1995 less than 60 percent of Taiwan's residents had health insurance; by 2001 the number was 97 percent. Yet according to a careful study published in Health Affairs two years ago, this huge expansion in coverage came virtually free: it led to little if any increase in overall health care spending beyond normal growth due to rising population and incomes.

The US system is cruel and less efficient.

The economic and moral case for health care reform in America, reform that would make us less different from other advanced countries, is overwhelming. One of these days we'll realize that our semiprivatized system isn't just unfair, it's far less efficient than a straightforward system of guaranteed health insurance.

But as Krugman says we have a couple of obstacles to overcome before we come to out senses. We have to stop thinking of health-care as a privilege and get over the idea that private insurance is more efficient than public insurance. The numbers would certainly indicate that's not the case.

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