Healthcare reform, how the U.S. stacks up against other countries

The report comes by way of Monica Showalter at American Thinker who writes now that Democrats come back in control of the House, when they can stop themselves from fro thinking about impeaching Trump, they'll be focused primarily on 'fixing' healthcare. Showalter bases her post on John Merline's reporting for Investor's Business Daily.

Democrats deliver a lot of sophistry to bring American healthcare more fully under government control in the way they imagine proper socialist countries do. Merline rips them a new as... disputes their claimed facts with more nuanced facts derived from the real world of how things actually work, while acknowledging their claims are sometimes basically true.

Briefly in outline form.

1) The U.S. does pay more for healthcare than other countries. Merline cites a lot of figures for a lot of categories of American spending, it gets down to America is a wealthy country so naturally America spends more on healthcare. Simply looking at spending as share of GDP isn't the best measure of what is "too much."

2) Another misperception is that the governments of other countries cover the cost of health care with everyone covered under a national universal health plan. But that's wrong.

Even communist China relies on a mix of public and private payers as well as out-of-pocket spending. There are differences between countries but no country relies 100% on government.

For example, often cited Canada the government pays 69%, Canadians pay 15.4% out-of-pocket, and insurance companies pay 12.4%

In the U.S. government pays 54%, people pay 11% out-of-pocket and insurance pays 35%.

In Denmark out-of-pocket it 14%, In Norway it's 14.6% and in Sweden 15%.

Germany relies on "sickness funds" into which individuals and employers pay. Japan has mandatory insurance system comprised of employment-based for salaried employees, and a national health insurance for the uninsured, self-insured and low income, and a separate insurance program for elderly.

3) U.S. ranks poorly on life expectancy and infant mortality. The figures for these categories are compiled different ways. And they include things that have nothing to do with health care, murders, suicides, obesity rates vary widely between countries. There are widespread differences in life expectancy within the United States that have almost nothing to do with healthcare. Studies have found that behavioral and socioeconomic factors accounted for most of the variation; weight, inactivity, smoking, hypertension, diabetes, poverty, education, unemployment and racial composition. If these factors can account for differences within the U.S. then they can account for differences between the U.S. and other countries.

The U.S. reports as live births more low-birth-weight babies who are at high risk of dying in the first day than other countries where babies can die days later and not be counted as live birth.

4) Another thing activists claim as rallying cry for healthcare reform is that healthcare is a right guaranteed in other countries but not in the U.S.

Countries with "universal" healthcare routinely ration care to their citizens to save money. Patients in socialist countries suffer chronic delays in getting treatment. Tens of thousands of Canadians come to the U.S. to get care they cannot get from their own "guaranteed" healthcare system. In the U.K. patients are increasingly spending money out of pocket to "jump the queue "

5) Bottom line is international comparisons are tricky and they can be wildly misleading particularly when they're used to argue for healthcare reform ideas that involve fundamental changes in the U.S. such as "Medicare for all."