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No, they aren't underfunding. US government health care spending was $4,034/person. UK total health expenditures per person was $3,935. http://data.worldbank.o
by yummyfajitas 10y ago
No, they aren't underfunding. US government health care spending was $4,034/person. UK total health expenditures per person was $3,935.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.PCAP http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.XPD.PCAP
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2014USbn_17bs2n_10#usgs302 http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2014USbn_1...
For us to underfund it to UK levels, we'd have to expand medicare or medicaid to every single person while simultaneously cutting the total government budget for health care by 2.5%.
- maxerickson 10y agoThe UK system isn't competing with private US consumers for a limited pool of services. The comparison perhaps illustrates the poor value/dollar achieved in the US, it isn't instructive as to whether US government funded healthcare meets the costs of providing the services it mandates (a perfectly reasonable definition of underfunded).
- yummyfajitas 10y agoTo clarify, when I said I'd favor socialized medicine that we drastically underfund, the goal was to stop wasting resources on medicine. I.e., we should bring our health care utilization/spending down to UK levels, since evidently that doesn't significantly harm health. Using a definition like "meets the costs of providing the services it mandates" inherently contradicts this philosophy since in the US, all sorts of crazy services will be mandated. E.g., mammograms for women under 50.