National Geographic ran an interesting little tidbit about health care, and while I understand that health care as a whole is messy, complicated, and not working the way we all want it to, they do have a good way of narrowing it down to the basics: the annual costs of care (a nice easy number) and life expectancy (another nice easy number). This is certainly an oversimplification of the issue, but I think it gets to the heart of it. We value life, and want people to have a good life for as long as possible. We also value money – and want to spend as little of it as possible. Where these to items come together is where health care becomes political.
So anyway, NG did some analysis and found “The United States spends more on medical care per person than any country, yet life expectancy is shorter than in most other developed nations and many developing ones. Lack of health insurance is a factor in life span and contributes to an estimated 45,000 deaths a year.”
The chart is shocking:
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