Thursday, August 20, 2009

Yes, I love the NHS too.

In the UK, we spend something like 8.4% of GDP on healthcare, much of it through the NHS. In the USA they spend 15.3%, mostly through private medical insurance.

So they must be more loads more healthy than us? Probably about twice as healthy? Right?

As it happens, incorrect.

In the US you've got 8 chances in 1000 of dying before you're 5, in the UK, 6:1000.
In the US you stand to get 67 healthy years life (men) and 71 (women). In the UK, 69 and 72.

So where's all that extra 6.9% of GDP going? It's clearly not going on keeping people healthier. I suggest that much of it is enriching the bloated capitalists who are trying to talk down state-supported non-profit healthcare.

Don't take my word for it, check it out yourself.

Also, check out these neat graphs. The second one is a great example of the law of diminishing returns.

And here's more stuff on similar lines.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Ta, I like that.