←back to thread

201 points andsoitis | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.211s | source
Show context
defrost ◴[] No.41854450[source]
For an interesting side piece:

    Curiously, however, for a system apparently stultified by the dead hand of government, Australia’s health system far outperforms the free market-based US healthcare system, which spends nearly twice as much per capita as Australia to deliver far worse outcomes — including Americans dying five years younger than us.
The shocking truth: Australia has a world-leading health system — because of governments

Source: https://www.crikey.com.au/2024/10/16/pubic-private-healthcar...

Bypass: https://clearthis.page/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.crikey.com.au%2F...

    Overall, we now have the fourth-highest life expectancy in the world.

   This is contrary to the narrative that pervades the media about our health system — one in which our “frontline” health workers heroically battle to overcome government neglect and inadequate spending, while the population is beset by various “epidemics” — obesity, alcohol, illicit drugs.

    In fact, Australian longevity is so remarkable that in August The Economist published a piece simply titled “Why do Australians live so long?”
Other references:

The Economist: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2024/08/23/why-do-a...

AU Gov Report: Advances in measuring healthcare productivity https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/measuring-healthcar...

replies(14): >>41854605 #>>41854613 #>>41854799 #>>41855053 #>>41855120 #>>41855218 #>>41855732 #>>41856242 #>>41856326 #>>41857738 #>>41857930 #>>41857960 #>>41858153 #>>41876405 #
WalterBright ◴[] No.41856242[source]
The US is hardly a free market health care system.

For example, Medicare.

replies(2): >>41856389 #>>41859459 #
1. dahart ◴[] No.41859459[source]
Depends on what you mean by health care. Medicare is insurance, not care, and while insurance is part of the system, Medicare often pays private healthcare providers for service. Medicare only insures ~14% of the US, less than one sixth and is only available for people 65 and older. For those reasons, your example maybe doesn’t demonstrate what you imply.