Which Countries Have The Best Healthcare?
In June 2017, the United States Senate rejected third
attempt under President Donald Trump to repeal the Affordable Care Act. This
failure was the latest development in the US’s slow move towards socialized
healthcare. But in fact, the United States has long had one of the worst
balances between what healthcare costs each citizen, and what benefit they get
out of it. In the rest of the world, citizens pay much less, or nothing and
often receive higher quality care, with higher life expectancy and lower rates of
disease.
So, we wanted to know, which countries get whither most out
of their healthcare? Well, since 2012, the Bloomberg Health-Care Efficiency
Index has measured exactly this balance. As of 2016 one of the top three
ranking countries was Spain. Spain is an above average representation of
HealthCare in OECD countries, and spends roughly twenty-six hundred dollars per
person with an average life expectancy of nearly 84 years. About ten per cent
of the country’s GDP goes towards healthcare costs, which are largely
subsidized by the government. This system of socialized medicine is globally
known as “single-payer”, and most citizens see no out-of-pocket expenses when
they visit public hospitals. In fact, the right to healthcare is guaranteed in
Spain’s constitution. However, this system also leads to complaints about
delays in seeing doctors beyond primary care, or getting specialized surgeries.
Ranking Second on the Efficiency-Index is another country with universal
healthcare, Singapore.
Unlike Spain, Singapore requires that care is NEVER provided
for free, in order to avoid wasteful use of the system. Instead, healthcare
costs are kept artificially low through government subsidies, which compared to
Spain, only use 1.6% of Singapore’s GDP. In addition to implementing price controls
on medical care and medication, the country uses a system known as Medisave.
This is a medical savings account, where up to 9 percent of employee salaries
are required to be deducted and set aside, and can be used for personal or
family care. This combination means that costs are low, while the quality of
care is one of the highest in the world. But overall, the best, and most efficient
healthcare system is reportedly in the autonomous territory of Hong Kong.
Interestingly, the territory uses a combination of private and public care,
with one of the highest life expectancies in the world, costing just $2000
dollars per citizen, and comprising just 3% of the GDP. However, Hong Kong’s
high ranking healthcare may not be exactly what it seems at first glance. First
of all, while public healthcare plans can be purchased at low costs, the wait
to see specialists or to get certain surgeries can be excessive, with some
sources claiming 5 year wait lists. On the other hand, private hospitals are
reportedly speedy but very expensive.
This combination of low-cost care for routine visits and
medication, with high priced elective or specialized care makes Hong Kong’s system
incredibly efficient, and difficult to overburden, thereby avoiding raising
costs for everyone. While these three countries get the most bang for their
buck, with very high standards of care and life expectancy, they are also difficult
to apply broadly around the world. Singapore and Hong Kong have populations of under
ten million people, meaning that most health factors are uniform throughout the
region and population.
By comparison, the United States is enormous, with a
population of over 320 million, making centralized, or single payer healthcare more
difficult to implement without serious complications. Nonetheless, US
healthcare costs are astronomical, with medical bills being the number one
cause of bankruptcy for Americans. So why is US health care so incredibly
expensive? Check out this video to the right to find out. Thanks for watching Now
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