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Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

good.is

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Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#71
post #15

This is a terrible graph. It took me five minutes to figure out how everything is related. Data such as this is much more naturally plotted as an x-y scatter-plot. Thickness of the datapoints could indicate number of doctor visits. Instead, the graph eliminates the x-axis, but retains the space. Very strange choice.

Agreed. Here's the same data in a scatter plot (second chart down). Far, far easier to grasp. http://www.stat.columbia.edu/~cook/movabletype/archives/2009...

IMO, the slope of the lines in National Geographic chart show the Spending/LE relation better.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#72

Some reasons American medicine is very expensive: 1. Health insurance, but not treatment, is fully tax deductible. So if you buy your own penicillin, it's with after tax money, but if your insurance company buys it, it's pre-tax money. That's one of the reasons that health insurance is so widespred in America even for routine medicine like antibiotics and checkups. That's a major contributing factor in why the admini…

3. could get fixed much more easily by dropping the 4-year pre-med undergraduate degree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-medical), and adding about 1 year of instruction to med school.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#73
post #15

This is a terrible graph. It took me five minutes to figure out how everything is related. Data such as this is much more naturally plotted as an x-y scatter-plot. Thickness of the datapoints could indicate number of doctor visits. Instead, the graph eliminates the x-axis, but retains the space. Very strange choice.

Actually, this seems like a terrible visualization because it's taken out of context, and was originally presented in a magazine. You can see where the article text would go, the United States label is hidden away near the binding and far in the upper margin, and due to expected info location/"eye drift" one doesn't find the U.S. at first.

Wish I could provide a scan of the page as it went to print, but I only saw it while visiting family. Regardless, the presentation is clearly to cause that double take rather than just to efficiently convey the information.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#74

Some reasons American medicine is very expensive: 1. Health insurance, but not treatment, is fully tax deductible. So if you buy your own penicillin, it's with after tax money, but if your insurance company buys it, it's pre-tax money. That's one of the reasons that health insurance is so widespred in America even for routine medicine like antibiotics and checkups. That's a major contributing factor in why the admini…

Most of this points (at least 1-3, I don't know about #4) are also true in other countries (like mine). So they are not reasons for why the US health care system is expensive but rather propaganda.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#75
I'd imagine that computing the cost of health care is an incredibly complex undertaking. Without being able to review the methodology used, this graph is next to useless. For example, here are just a few questions that come to mind (and I'm sure more would arise if the methodology was properly peer reviewed):

1. Are there no data points between the United States and Switzerland? Are there no data points above the United States and below Mexico? If there are, that would make the graph misleading and they have to specify this limitation if they're intellectually honest. If there aren't, they have to demonstrate that they've gone through the exhaustive list of countries and there are no other "interesting" data points.

2. Is the cost adjusted for cost of living at a given country? If not, that would make the graph extremely misleading. If yes, what adjustment strategy was used? Can we see the ratio between cost of health care and median yearly salary, for example?

3. What does "average life expectancy at birth mean"? Does it account for countries that have a significantly lower birth rate than the United States? I would guess not, which could significantly affect the perception of the numbers. How does one normalize for something like that?

4. How was the currency conversion rate computed? Currency prices fluctuate throughout the year, did they account for that? How much does that affect the numbers? Could be a lot, could be a little, but I need to know whether this was taken into account.

5. What does "universal health coverage" mean? Soviet Union had universal health coverage and no medication, surgery performed by under-qualified residents, and no post-surgery care, unless you know someone or bribe the doctor, of course.

6. Surely there are countries without universal health care other than the U.S. and Mexico - how do they stack up?

7. I'm willing to bet a country like Poland has a lot more homeless people that don't factor into the life expectancy numbers than the U.S. That begs a more general question of whether the same methodology was used for computing the cost or life expectancy for each country. If they simply took official numbers from each country, it's almost certain that they were computed differently. Was this accounted for? If not, I need to know. If yes, how were the numbers normalized?

One could probably come up with dozens of questions like these. Of course any analysis of a problem that complex can be called into question, that doesn't mean every analysis is useless. But before we can seriously discuss this graph, or base any policy decisions on it, they at least have to provide the methodology. It doesn't look like this graph is intellectually honest to me, and the burden of proof is on the author.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#76
post #63

I think we should show a chart of each country's health care costs relative to how much their lawyers make on health care related malpractice cases. Because in America, it's out of control, and probably the largest reason health care costs so much. Honestly, a good first step in taming the health care and health insurance costs should be to cap how much lawyers make on malpractice cases. Why do people rarely talk abo…

Really, why was I down voted? I'm not sure what was wrong with the comment. I think anyone would agree with the idea of tort reform, just like anyone would agree with the idea of health care reform. But even if you don't, I thought that with Hacker news, you only down vote people when they aren't insightful or off-topic. So, a differing opinion also accounts for down voting now? Like on Digg?

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#77

Some reasons American medicine is very expensive: 1. Health insurance, but not treatment, is fully tax deductible. So if you buy your own penicillin, it's with after tax money, but if your insurance company buys it, it's pre-tax money. That's one of the reasons that health insurance is so widespred in America even for routine medicine like antibiotics and checkups. That's a major contributing factor in why the admini…

> 2. Allow any doctor in a country with reasonably competent medical standards to practice in the United States.

Not even that. Canada gets many South African doctors (most of which are fairly competent). In addition to this, they continually monitor doctors. So, if an incompetent doctor slips through, he is quickly caught and his license is revoked.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#78
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point...poor lifestyle drives healthcare costs up. It would be interesting to see fast food spending or avg calories/day on top of this chart.

Couldn't agree more and it's a point a lot of people are hush-huse about because it's easier to point the finger at the system than poor personal habits. just a small sample... http://grab.by/1v6n

Here's the thing, I'm a Canadian who's living in the USA. Canada has much lower health care costs - but our dietary patterns are much the same. In fact, I really have not changed my feeding habits at all since coming to the USA.

Yes, unhealthy dietary choices weighs the system down - but it weighs all systems down, and to say it accounts for the majority of the discrepancy is IMHO missing the gorilla in the room, which is that the US health care system is unbelievably broken.

Addendum: There is one thing where the US is very different from Canada. You guys eat the same stuff we do... but you eat much more of it. I'm pretty convinced that the average American can eat half, if not one quarter what they currently do and be just fine. Serving sizes in the US are so big that nowadays I often pack up lunch leftovers and have more than enough for dinner.

Re: Cost of Health Care By Country, as Compared to Life Expectancy

#79

Some reasons American medicine is very expensive: 1. Health insurance, but not treatment, is fully tax deductible. So if you buy your own penicillin, it's with after tax money, but if your insurance company buys it, it's pre-tax money. That's one of the reasons that health insurance is so widespred in America even for routine medicine like antibiotics and checkups. That's a major contributing factor in why the admini…

I agree with your overall point that the U.S. medical system suffers from overregulation. We could (and should) allow more primary care to be performed by, for instance, qualified nurses, RNs, and nurse-practitioners. As you point out, the existing guilds hate this idea. But your first point needs some correction. Health insurance is only tax-deductible when it's paid for by your employer. [EDIT: Just noticed you men…

Look outside the US, and you will find that your solution (primary care done by nurses) isn't unlikely to be the right one.

In France, going to the doctor (general practitioner) costs €22, before insurance (it's €5 or €1 after insurance, the co-pay as you'd call it). It's much cheaper because:

- he didn't have to spend 200k to go to med school, it's free

- he doesn't need 5 employees to fill insurance forms, or waste 2h a day calling insurers -- it's all automagic, no paper involved.

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