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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

You should watch the (very excellent) Frontline special on comparative national health insurance plans. It's an evenhanded take from a left-leaning source with serious investigative journalism chops.

Over the long term, the ACA produces a system that most closely resembles that of Switzerland. Switzerland's health insurance system was the least fraught of the options Frontline looked at.

It is not reasonable to suggest that the UK NHS and Health Canada are without problems. They have significant issues, particularly with regard to allocation of specialist care.

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The US spends 17.9% of its GDP on Healthcare. The UK by contrast spends 9.6%. (Canada is 11.3%) I read another article that says the US has 2.2 administrative workers per office based physician, Canada is 1.1.

It just seems to me that the 'Private' system that many Americans insist is better than the 'Public' systems that the rest of the 1st world is simply not the case.

I think that if you either are fantastically rich, or work for a company like Microsoft, then the average person is better off with public healthcare system of a 1st world economy (or Cuba).

Hope I don't appear defensive with this, but I don't think I ever came close to suggesting that 'the UK NHS and Health Canada are without problems' and that for you to suggest the issues they have are more significant than the issues facing American healthcare is totally disingenuous. Simply put, all users of the health care system from unemployed worker right up to the Royal family have access, and use the same system.

I have significant (anecdotal) experience with the American, French, Canadian (BC), and British (England and Scotland) systems with family and friends with geriatric, orthopaedic, and oncology care. I can tell you definitively that you are better off anywhere but the USA. The care that was/is given in the Canada, the UK, and France was excellent. It seemed to us that only thing that mattered in the States was who was going to pay the bills.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/30/healthc... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-19317991

Perhaps worth noting, France is not a single-payer system. It has nonprofit private insurers, an individual mandate, and no exclusions for preexisting conditions. It adds good electronic medical records and a national price list for medical services.

Source: The Healing of America by T.R. Reid.

My central point, as a percentage of GDP, the French economy spends 11.9% on healthcare in aggregate. The French system is user pay, government refund, based on means. The US spends 17.9%. The better question is why does the American Healthcare industry occupy such a large fraction of the American economy? It is especially interesting 47% of that figure is private spending, and that 53% is government spend. Canada has nearly 30% private spend on its healthcare, France 22%, Britain 16%. Per capita, the States spends the 4th largest amount. In very broad terms it seems to me that Americans are getting bad value for money for their healthcare system.

http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/jun/30/healthc...

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