Health care
Sometimes I find it amusing (and sometimes disgraceful) that the Americans don't have "free" health care. Of course, health care isn't free -- in 2006 it cost little under 2600 euros per citizen of Finland (how much people actually paid depends on their income, of course). The newspiece portraits this as expensive, maybe it is. How much do Americans pay for ther for their health plans (how much companies have to pay to cover their employees)?
On top of the above mentioned government safety web I have health insurance that costs me about 30 euros per year.
But all in all, what do you think of the safety web? Is it a great thing, or a bad thing?
My gut reaction would be that free health care is a good thing. But here's a question we should ask: how do Americans compare to, say, Finns in terms of general health?
ReplyDeleteToday I've stumbled on a post from Overcoming Bias, which discusses this very issue: what's the actual health benefit from free health care? Taking into account our fascination with free things just because they're free while ignoring their actual price (and not just monetary), the answer becomes less obvious.
From the point of view of (the majority?) of Americans, free health care would be a drain on every citizen while providing no actual extra benefits. Their system apparently allows less overall spending with the same effectiveness.
I won't argue the point since I'm low on data (and I wonder how I'd react if the American system would be instated in Israel), but it's worth looking into, instead of just sniggering at those silly Americans.
Short google-search found National Coalition on Health Care's webpage, which had some numbers about the American system ( http://www.nchc.org/facts/cost.shtml). They claim to be neutral, but I get the impression that they want a system overhaul, which of course doesn't mean the same as free healthcare (though that is also possible).
ReplyDeleteAmerica DOES have a national health care. It's just limited and works awfully, testament to this is that it costs more than most health care systems in Europe (even when remembering the population differences), while only a fraction of citizens use it. Fast calculation left me upward of $8000.
Insurance for family of four costs about $12 000. I'm not sure can you just divide that sum by four to get per head count (after all, kids seldom need big operations due cancer, for examble) but it seems to be many times more than what I pay to private companies or as taxes.