Via Paul Krugman comes a nice chart showing cost growth in health care across different countries. The chart shows how much Germany, the UK, Canada, and the US spent in 1970 (as a percent of GDP), and how much we all spend now:
Though it's true, as some say, that no developed country has figured out how to arrest cost growth, the bottom line is that the rest have done a far better job containing it. Moreover, all those scare stories you hear about Canada and Britain? Look what they spend. Half what we do. And they get, what, 90 percent of the value-added care that Americans receive? Maybe 98 percent? If Canada wanted to spend an additional 5.4 percent of GDP on health care -- in American terms, that would be equivalent to $700 billion dollars -- no one would ever wait for anything ever again. As it is, they want to spend money on other things, and so they accept some waiting times. On our side of the border we spend far more than they do, don't insure 47 million people, amd give really excellent care to the upper middle class and the rich. On a slightly different note, why, when I plug the numbers for the above graph into Excel, do I get two lines, rather than a multiline graph? How do I make US, Germany, Canada, and the UK into separate series? I've written the numbers in every permutation I can think of (which probably means I've missed something obvious).
Though it's true, as some say, that no developed country has figured out how to arrest cost growth, the bottom line is that the rest have done a far better job containing it. Moreover, all those scare stories you hear about Canada and Britain? Look what they spend. Half what we do. And they get, what, 90 percent of the value-added care that Americans receive? Maybe 98 percent? If Canada wanted to spend an additional 5.4 percent of GDP on health care -- in American terms, that would be equivalent to $700 billion dollars -- no one would ever wait for anything ever again. As it is, they want to spend money on other things, and so they accept some waiting times. On our side of the border we spend far more than they do, don't insure 47 million people, amd give really excellent care to the upper middle class and the rich. On a slightly different note, why, when I plug the numbers for the above graph into Excel, do I get two lines, rather than a multiline graph? How do I make US, Germany, Canada, and the UK into separate series? I've written the numbers in every permutation I can think of (which probably means I've missed something obvious). 
