| mrstickball said: Manus - Nationmaster is only aggregating per capita expenditures, and not actual coverage. When it comes to expenditures, you can see that total per-capita expenses are valuated at (G+P)=T (Government + Private) = Total. The problem with this argument is that the $2,000 for government healthcare in America is covering far, far less people than the same $2,000 is in Germany. To make a real apples to apples comparison, you HAVE to use data concerning enrollees on a specific system, and nothing less. Otherwise, your going to compare expenditures in countries that spend less, and have far less coverage. Otherwise, according to your data, Mexico has the best government healtcare system as it spends 1/10th that of Germany. Of course, the issue is that Mexico covers far less people with their $250 than Germany does for their $2000. And that's the same even with the countries that spend the same - the US government covers far less people with it's government system (Medicare) than Germany does with it's system. Here's the actual data: For the $2,060 per capita, Germany covers 90% of the population with their healthcare system. You can find that info here: http://www.civitas.org.uk/pubs/bb3Germany.php For $2,050 per capita, the United States covers approximately 16% of the population. You can find that info here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-08-01-medicaid_x.htm So how is it that government healthcare is universally better, when the American federal government spends 6 times as much per enrollment as Germany? |
The ad hominems from you only show how poor your argument is and how little you understand healthcare. Its obvious that socialized healthcare is better than America's system because, as you stated yourself, Germany can cover 90% of its population at a fraction of the cost of America's healthcare.
The government needs to own and operate healthcare facitilites. Currently, America pays private hospitals to cover people, which essentially means they are writing doctors a blank check. Private hospitals routinely charge the government for unnecessary tests and for tests they never ran. If the hospital was government owned it would not have the same incentives, and if doctors were on a government salary they would have no incentive to run unnecessary tests, charge for tests they never ran, and so forth.
