But don’t worry lads. We still have the best damned doctors in the world, for those of you lucky enough to afford them. We’ve become a have and have nots society, just like that garbage Matt Damon movie, Elysium.
The good news, we beat out Jordan, Colombia Azerbaijan, Brazil and Russia, where people are left to rot and die from the common cold. The bad news, everyone else in the world has a better healthcare system. At least in Russia, you can get the same quality, fucked up, healthcare as here — but at 1/10th the cost.
America was 50th out of 55 countries in 2014, according to a Bloomberg index that assesses life expectancy, health-care spending per capita and relative spending as a share of gross domestic product. Expenditures averaged $9,403 per person, about 17.1 percent of GDP, that year — the most recent for which data are available — and life expectancy was 78.9. Only Jordan, Colombia, Azerbaijan, Brazil and Russia ranked lower.
i’ve personally experienced the turd-like healthcare system in China on several occasions, and the fact that it’s ranked so high makes me believe this ranking system is flawed.
So your saying we need around the clock experts on this to figure out how to get our GDP lower so we can totally dominate this list? Maybe even move up 22 spots in only a year like Argentina and Iran.
Most of our healthcare costs come from end of life care. How often do most 20-40 year olds see a doctor? Maybe once or twice a year for a checkup or when they get a cold? What saps the system are the 70 and 80 year olds on dialysis. 80 and 90 year olds in nursing homes who get shipped off to the emergency departments for full court press treatment every couple of weeks. We could probably cut our costs by 1/3 to 1/2 if we figured out a better way to manage the elderly.
Also I see countries on this list where you would absolutely not want to get sick. 50 year old gets a cough, goes to the ED here in the USA and they find lung cancer…as long as you have insurance you will probably be seeing an oncologist within a day or two to be considered for surgery/chemo. If the same thing happens in the UK you’ll be lucky to get in within 6 weeks, at which time that sucker has metastasized to 7 other sites and your treatment/cure window is closed. Seen it happen.
I’ve just had a horrible premonition of Matt Damon and his band of dirty ill-mannered ruffians crashing our soiree of top-hatted gentlemen.