Others can wade through the rest of the data and the methodology in the report. The salient charts are these:
[click on images to enlarge]
The first chart is about money spent on health care; the second is about results.
Well, at least we're number one in something. USA!! USA!! USA!!
As long as any attempts to fix the mess are characterized as killing grandma, we won't get very far. On the other hand, maybe teabaggers have shown us the way: as it is with tax cuts, which pay for themselves, all we need to do is stop paying so much for health care (I suggest continuing what's been done so far: stop paying doctors and hospitals altogether) and the problems will fix themselves.
Great data and demonstative of the relationship between spending money on "sick care" and lives saved.
ReplyDeleteWe need a new category to measure, say, lives extended for a short and miserable time with the predictable result-death. Perhaps that would gain attention beyond continuing to blame doctors and hospitals for the cost of health care.
S you are correct that the numbers will likely improve when the Feds take the next whack at hospital and physician fees. Hospitals will close, doctors willl say, "no thanks" and pneumonia will once again become "the old man's friend."