Education ‘advocates’ are always complaining that we don’t spend enough on education and that there are many countries that spend more than us.

It even parallels that fact that we spend a ton without getting obviously better outcomes. What will the left do with that fact?

An area of the cost to life expectancy debate I haven’t come across is how illegals effect the ratio. While the US medical community is required to provide treatment for illegals, there is the possibility that because of their status they are wary of getting medical help until a disease has progressed to a more advanced stage. This could both bring the costs up, and life expectancy down.

I’m not saying we should stop treating illegals, just that other countries don’t have this issue or don’t include illegals in their health care demographics.

My old dog was on thyroid pills. We ran low and found out we could get the same pill in a pharmacy… except it cost several times as much. There are many services for animals: X-rays, MRI, etc. that are exacly like the human procedures except they cost FAR less. Not technology, not equipment, not support staff… the difference is liability and regulations.

If you really want to cut medical costs, you might start right there.

I suspect that you might see the same relationship with housing. We likely spend more per capita and have better, bigger housing. We kept spending more and more on housing. Then the bubble burst and now housing prices have fallen in many communities.

The question is would the same fate befall health care. At some point it will, when the government, employers and people can no longer afford the bill.

The problem is that the government is trying to solve the cost problem with a public plan that will impose price controls. That will undoubtedly distort the market in ways that will adversely affect research, medical breakthroughs and the quality of the human resources that will choose to go into the field.

To follow the debate and health care delivery issues go to http://www.ilovebenefits.wordpress.com

Unless the excess amount spent by the rich is spent on bouncy new silicone boobs, chiseled noses and that distinctly embalmed pulled alien looked inexplicably favoured by wealthy ladies.

But as it is always with 1-parameter statistics, they don’t show the real picture…

That being said, logic dictates the need for a different tack to demonstrate truth to the populace.

That’s a good point. However, given that European countries are being forced to move toward privatization of health care, one-size-fits-all is not even working at the country level for small countries with homogeneous populations!