Other industrialized countries, especially European, seem to favor a single payer Universal Health Care model under which the state pays for all health care.
Japan is unusual in that it has employer provided insurance and provides national insurance for anyone outside the employer system. Other leading nations like Russia and China have such low life expectancies that their systems seem lacking.
On the surface such "socialized medicine" seems to answer several problems in the U.S. system. You get treatment when you are sick, not just when you can afford it. Drugs are covered. No one is excluded (does it cover residents as well as citizens? visitors? illegal aliens?). Administrative costs are lower. Overall costs are lower. Outcomes are better for the entire population.
There are a bunch of questions. Are there medical services that can be purchased outside the system? Private physicians? Cosmetic surgery? Experimental procedures. Are wait times longer under the "socialized medicine" systems. Are doctors as well compensated? Are there localized and generalized shortages of doctors and nurses? What does it cost per person per year? Are taxes higher in countries with single payer health care? Are patients satisfied?
But if you boil it all down to basics you'll really want to know how much of a country's wealth is spent on medicine and is the care effective. WHO has been tracking the data for years. By 2006 it was pretty clear the US is not getting its money's worth compared to other nations:
| Country |
%GDP
on Med |
WHO
Ranking |
Longevity
Years (2007)
|
| Australia | 8.4
| 32
| 80.6
|
| Canada | 9.2
| 30
| 80.3
|
| France | 9.6
| 1
| 80.6
|
| Japan | 9.6
| 1
| 82.1
|
| UK | 6.8
| 18
| 78.7
|
| US | 14.0
| 37
| 78.0
|
If you were looking for improvements to an industrial area, you would find the world leader, study their process and find ways to change your process to improve your results. From the data above it looks like France is doing something right. For less than 10% of their GDP they are generating the best overall outcome. (Denying the data is a typical management reaction when they don't like what it shows.)