Health care in the United States isn’t cheap. Compared to other wealthy countries, the U.S. has twice as much healthcare spending on average. With a number like that, one might assume that the healthcare system in the U.S. would be the most lavishly funded and effective health care system in the world. The reality is actually quite different. Take even a cursory glance at healthcare outcomes and appropriation of funds in the U.S., and it’s easy to see why.
Retired physician Dr. Bill Honigman describes healthcare in the U.S. as a “crisis” and points to life expectancy as well as infant and maternal mortality rates as examples of the U.S. healthcare system under-performing.
In fact, life expectancy in the U.S. is significantly lower than in other developed countries according to data from the Central Intelligence Agency. The U.S. ranks 43 in the world with a life expectancy of 80 while Monaco sits at the top with a life expectancy of 89.4.
Infant mortality rates in the U.S. are substantially higher than other wealthy countries. According to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis, the U.S. has 5 infant mortalities per 1,000 live births compared to 3.4 per 1,000 for the average comparable country.
Meanwhile, maternal mortality in the U.S. has been on the rise in recent years according to a 2015 Global Burden of Disease Study analysis. The U.S. is the only country where the maternal mortality rate has been on the rise and has a maternal mortality rate of 26.4 for every 100,000 live births. The next highest is the U.K. with only 9.2 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
“We’re not performing up to the standards of the industrialized world in healthcare,” Honigman says. “People think that American healthcare is the best in the world. There’s no evidence for making that statement.”
The evidence actually shows that the U.S. healthcare system is far from the best and according to a Commonwealth Fund report, The U.S. healthcare system is the worst in the developed world.
So what are all of these other countries doing to spend half as much on healthcare and yet achieve better healthcare outcomes across the board? All of them have universal healthcare in one form or another, many through what’s called a single-payer system. According to Merriam-Webster, single-payer means, “of, relating to, or being a system in which health-care providers are paid for their services by the government rather than by private insurers.” Not only has the single-payer model allowed countries to deliver quality care to every person, they’re also saving vast sums of money in the process.
But a single-payer healthcare system could be making it’s way to the U.S., at least if progressive activists get their way. A recent Reuters survey found 70% of Americans support a policy of Medicare for All and a recent Political Economy Research Institute analysis found Medicare for All would save the U.S. $5.1 trillion compared to the current system.
Medicare for All, by the way, is the name for single-payer legislation currently being pushed by Senator Bernie Sanders in the Senate and Representative Pramila Jayapal in the House of Representatives. It would also appear that momentum for such legislation is growing.
Senator Bernie Sanders’ legislation in the Senate had 16 cosponsors in the 115th Congress, up from 0 cosponsors just two years before. In the House of Representatives Medicare for All legislation went from 62 cosponsors in the 114th Congress to 124 cosponsors in the 115th. Since then, Rep. Pramila Jayapal has started the Medicare for All Caucus which now has more than 70 members.
For more information about Medicare for All, check out the video below.