US Healthcare Doesn’t Compare to Australia for the Average Person
US politicians tout US healthcare as the best healthcare system in the world. Why is it the best? Because it’s American and Americans say it’s the best, therefore it is. It’s kind of like “world’s best fish sandwich” or “coldest beer in town.”
This article in the NY Times discusses a Pennsylvania study on differing hospital costs and how they affect length of stay and mortality rates. In a nutshell, it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
People think that because US healthcare is more expensive it must be better. From my experience this is definitely not true.
While living in Australia I was amazed at how I was treated by two different doctors on a few separate occasions. They were friendly, patient, thorough, cheaper and most importantly good. Both doctors’ even asked “Is there anything else I can do for you today?” Jesus, good luck finding that here! If you know of a place, please let me know.
Doctors here love to find add-ons. It’s like they are trying to up sell you on certain things (hell there is pharmaceutical advertising in some doctors offices!) and if your visit lasts a bit longer, expect to be charged more. That is simply not what this American experienced while living in Australia.
A lot of people say yeah, these countries have socialized medicine but people die waiting to get access to them. That is a flat out lie created by lobbyists and politicians. One night, my now wife who is Australian could not breath properly and we had to rush to the hospital. Upon arrival, she showed her Medicare card and was immediately taken to triage. There was zero wait time. This short of a wait time might be rare for a non emergency visit but here in the US you would be guaranteed to wait longer. Even if there was nobody waiting you would still have to fill out a load of paperwork to insure that you either have insurance or have some means to pay. If you don’t have means to pay, the hospital has every right to flat out turn you down.
But in a country like Australia, insurance means not having to have insurance. If you lose your job and lose your insurance you won’t die from the inability to pay for health care costs, a sad reality in the wealthiest of wealthy nations.
My wife had bronchitis and she was put on a ventillator and they did x-rays on her lungs. After a few hours she was released from the hospital and I said “how much is that going to cost?” “Nothing” she replied. Public hospital visits like that are 100% free in Australia for all Australians. Here in the US, without health insurance, that little 2 hour stop in the hospital will probably run you a cool $1,000 without insurance.
So it’s a little tiresome hearing our health system praised as the best and socialized medicine deemed poor and ineffective. This writer has experienced both and personally, Australia’s health system is far better as far as access, cost and quality for the average person.
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POSTED IN: Health Care, Lies, Politics
9 opinions for US Healthcare Doesn’t Compare to Australia for the Average Person
Juan
Jun 14, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Wow. That’s something I’d like to see here in the Philippines. Our public healthcare system is terrible.
Kelly
Jun 14, 2007 at 4:21 pm
When I was in between jobs years ago, I had no health insurance. When I broke my hand, I went to the ER. They treated me and sent me to radiology. I had to wait in radiology while they performed a credit check (!) on me before giving me an Xray. When I questioned this, they told me that they were only required by law to treat life-threatening injuries, not breaks. Fortunately, my credit was good enough to earn me an Xray (lucky me).
It’s completely ridiculous how medicine is controlled in the US by the insurance and pharmaceutical companies. And I say that both as someone who has lived abroad and as someone who has a number of clients who are doctors and constantly complain about the state of medicine today…
Musical Chairs Linker Barn: Thursday, June 14
Jun 14, 2007 at 4:25 pm
[…] b5 Media blogger Brian Layman’s experience with socialized medicine in Australia. […]
Jul
Jun 15, 2007 at 10:24 am
The US healthcare system is so very broken. Why are so many people comfortable with the idea that education should be public and free to everyone, but healthcare should only be for those who can afford it? Health isn’t fundamental enough?
Mary Jo
Jun 15, 2007 at 2:27 pm
I had a similarly positive experience when I needed emergency room services in Canada. I spent a good four hours undergoing examinations, testing, and treatment before being released.
When I got the bill to settle up, I was shocked. A good kind of shocked, as the entire bill was only $350.
The follow up visit with my personal physician back in the US costs much more than the emergency service.
Cate
Jun 16, 2007 at 1:53 pm
Right on the money
Alex
Jun 18, 2007 at 5:09 pm
The price of US health care or “sick care” as my wife likes to call it is ridiculous. Because the cost is so high, many Americans don’t go to the doctors or hospital unless they get VERY sick. Sometimes it’s too late.
A few years ago my sister was misdiagnosed by the university doctor and had no insurance. He thought she had bronchitis but it was pneumonia that turned to double pneumonia-pneumonia in both lungs.
She spent just under 4 days in the hospital and her bill was over $15,000. On her last day a financial planner came in to discuss the costs.
We need a combination of public and private hospitals in this country-no way should a relatively random day in a hospital run somebody $4,000, that’s disgusting.
Jeff
Feb 25, 2008 at 2:18 am
Lol, Alex, Australia has a semi-private-sector system, not 100% socialist like UK and Canada have (see the first link below, but really, this should be common knowledge if you truly lived in both countries and have an IQ above 70. ;-) ). #1: see the RED TEXT on this page: socglory.blogspot.com/2006/07/wonderful-story-but-no-credit-to-nhs.html
More importantly, nations like UK/Canada (the TRULY socialist healthcare) are where I’ve heard the greatest complaints about slowness to schedule a life-or-death surgery, etc. — as an engineer with worldwide patent rights on a medical device which has made me speak or write to foreign doctors on 6 continents (just not Antarctica ;-) ) — and I wasn’t shocked that in the 2nd link — which I shall give at the end of this post — most people complaining said they were from the UK. As for USA costs and quality, there are several issues here: (1) Americans are LITIGIOUS and even GOOD doctors need to pass-on the high malpractice costs to patients or else not be able to pay off 8 years-worth of student loans. Litigiousness is a problem in our LAW system, not MEDICAL system, and guess which prez candidates support the Trial Lawyer Assoc.? ;-) (2) As the link below also explains, another reason why USA healthcare is more expensive is that we are wealthier — and the significance is that, from plastic-sugery to really needed surgeries, we have more *disposable* income; people who financially CANNOT put a premium cost on their own life will not, and even Western Europe’s median income is still low compared to USA’s (although unless someone fixes the declining dollar and service-sector, and US public-schools… ;-) ). (3) I agree when someone in the link below says USA quality has slipped in the last 10 years or so, to be only mediocre among Western nations (but I was asked byall 3 American doctors when I had a kidnet stone: “Is there anything else I can do for you today” (GP, urologist,AND anaesthesiologist) and did not get charged extra when I asked the urologist for nutritional advice about a kidney stone: my insurer sucked it up…as they should unless they want another $10,000 surgery as opposed to $30 of nutritional advice!!). (3) Canadian pharma costs are great compared to the result that the corrupt AND inept FDA produces, however FDA is already revamping its system and might reduce or remove animal-testing in favor of more accurate, cheaper, modern methods that prevail outside the USA already; unfortunately this has only come after threats by Congressmen — of removing bureaucrats in FDA and USDA from their jobs, to remove shady influences by the industries they are *supposed* to be policing — just as the UK found it necessary to do to their USDA-equivalent group a few years ago. It just goes to show: hospitals can screw you over, so can your own gov’t (whether the UK food authorities of a few years ago, or Bush’s USDA/FDA appointees… and in another case of failed socialism, it matters not whether baggage screeners at airports are public or private-sector; numerous journalists have gotten weapons past government-employed screeners [in fact, I can’t recall one journalist who got CAUGHT as they packed real weapons to test government-employed baggage screeners after reading approx 5 news stories where they showed their illegal contraband circa 2001-2004.]; a screener — or doctor — doesn’t suddenly take better care of you if his paycheck comes from the gub’mint <—and you would need to live in fantasy-land to believe that, and that is the crux of democratic-socialism. So when WILL a doctor or hospital take better care of you, if not simply because their paychecks come from the gub’mint? When a government FORCES them to get continuing-education, reins in the CFO’s of hospitals, etc., which is the biggest difference between Australia and Bush’s corporate-cronyist USA: he ignores your needs, and you vote him back in lol.
To study another contrast between nations, both the USA’s and Oz’s healthcare systems keep the government antagonistic toward the healthcare providers’ interests (i.e. antagonistic toward EACH OTHER, which plays in your favor, as the patient), but Canada/UK’s systems makes the mistake of having them ALL — i.e. government wonks AND their “new employees” in the healthcare industry which they just socialized — UNITED with each other, so that antagonism toward your interests, as the patient, can come to fruition more.
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I wouldn’t be against a system like Australia’s or Japan’s, would be against the UK’s or Canada’s, but I’d favor simply reforming the USA’s to keep greedy hospitals and others from gouging patients (e.g. Just look at an uninsured person’s bill versus that negotiated by health-insurance corps and then tell me hospitals don’t gouge outright when someone has a personal emergency… Gouging is illegal during situations that are emergencies for everyone all at once — like raising gasoline prices the day before a hurricane is illegal — so when it’s your personal emergency, no reasonable person “shops around” to “just see” what it would cost to fix a broken leg, burst appendix, and *everything* else, ya know? ;-) So it should be ILLEGAL to gouge patients in this way during an emergency, and in many other ways; you don’t need to socialize medicine to do that, nor to stop American litigiousness, just REGULATE doctors and lawyers instead of taking bribes (oops, I meant “donations”) as so many in Wash D.C. do.
the 2nd link: cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2006/02/youve_had_your_.html
Alex
Feb 25, 2008 at 7:46 pm
LOL Jeff, clearly you did not read what I wrote. I did not compare Australia with Canada and the UK’s health systems so what you said at the start is completely irrelevant-but if your IQ is over 70 you should know that ;)
I did read your very long winded comment and you do bring up some good points (and some incorrect ones). Yes, Australia’s system is semi-privatized in that there are public and private hospitals. But it is still a SOCIALIST system because if you don’t have insurance you can rock up to a hospital and have a bill of ZERO (that is a right for ALL Australians).
Australian health insurance is good for access to private hospitals and cheaper prescriptions (but even without insurance the prescription medicines are still cheaper there than the US). Over the counter medicines are actually more expensive than in the US though which I found odd.
My wife and I are just about to move to Holland and will HAVE to buy into their health system. I will be writing about that experience in the near future.
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