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Are you saying that the US population has health habits poor enough to account for the 1/3 more we spend on health care than anywhere else in the developed worl

• gozur88 11y ago
  No, I'm saying our health system is as good as, if not better, than anywhere else. The problem is there are a lot of Americans who have such a high opinion of the medical system they think they can adopt whatever habits they want to adopt without repercussion. Because the doctors can fix whatever problems result. This is a fantasy. I'm pretty sure there are some additional costs that result from lifestyle choices, but I don't know how much they impact the bottom line. And I don't think you can compare spending across countries like that. Americans have different expectations from the medical system - they don't accept money as a reason heroic measures shouldn't be taken, particularly at end-of-life. There are a lot of countries where it's reasonable to say to the family "Look, your father is very old. We could operate and maybe put his cancer into remission, but he's likely to die in a month or two anyway and we only have so much money." The US isn't one of them, and my suspicion is when we get a single payer system the costs won't actually come down much if at all.