The reports you linked measure "access and equity and outcomes" - i.e., averaged cost-effectiveness for people who rely on popular insurance programs, rather than paying out of pocket.
US scores poorly in those due to high sticker prices; the quality available for those who can afford is the best in US; both for specialist rare cases and for mundane cases.
> US scores poorly in those due to high sticker prices; the quality available for those who can afford is the best in US; both for specialist rare cases and for mundane cases.
I only doubt you a little, but in order to make this discussion as truthful as possible, you mind adding some sources to your strong claims?
I don't think CNN is what we should use as "evidence".
If you look at any of the research, the US has effectively the same survival rate of an emergency admission or elective surgery as the rest of the world (within a small margin).
This doesn't even control other items such as age, violence, body weight, pre-existing conditions, etc etc. Arguably the U.S. has a bigger issue with weight, which would indicate the U.S. healthcare system may be slightly more robust.
I'm not saying it's perfect, but I'd avoid diving into political leaning pundits -- common wealth fund and CNN are both political pundits. Looking at the raw data it is not as clear.
The rich will just go to whatever country happens to have the best person to treat the thing they need treating.
Had a colleague whose wife worked at a Swedish hospital and she had patients from all over the world, not because the Swedish health system or even that hospital was particularly fantastic, but because she was one of the top people in the world in this one very niche thing.
> Most western countries have better healthcare system than the US, New Zealand included.
Canadian here. The AVERAGE Canadian's health care is MUCH better than the average American's.
But the best hospitals and the best healthcare in the world is in the US ... if you can afford it. Most of our multi-millionaires and billionaires go to the US for anything critical.
>But the best hospitals and the best healthcare in the world is in the US ... if you can afford it.
91% of Americans have health insurance, compared to 95-97% for Canada and every other developed country. There are always people who fall into cracks, such as the Canadian who neglects to sign up for a new provincial health care card after moving. The only way to have true 100% coverage is to do what the UK does and not require any card or ID at point of delivery.
>Most of our multi-millionaires and billionaires go to the US for anything critical.
I am now in Israel, where I had much better outcomes than when I was in the US (with excellent insurance). Anecdotal, but I know many stories of Israelis who moved back to Israel with first diagnosis of a serious disease despite a good insurance - mostly because they were aware of horror stories of people losing their insurance at some point and going bankrupt (COBRA is damn expensive, and only lasts 18 month at its longest).
Granted, their experience predates Obamacare - it might be different now.
I cannot comment on Israel, but it is true (anecdotally) for Canada. Doctor and medicine shortages - day-long waits for ER care - hospitals overflowing with elderly patients - etc....
I have had far worse experiences in Canada than in the US.
Iirc Canada doesn’t actually have a private system, does it?
Israel has an excellent, though very unpleasant, free public system; and also a parallel private system that’s as expensive as the US (but that has a very distinct use profile because of the existence of the public system).
You’ll almost always get to see an ER doctor within a couple of hours in the public system, and a junior specialist for a non-emergency within a couple of weeks, but if you want the real expert specialist, you’ll wait 6 months in the public system, or 2 weeks if you go private.
Time constants from the center / Tel Aviv area. I heard they are worse the farther away you are - but then, 90% of the population is within a 2 hour drive of Tel Aviv, and the rest are less than 4 hours drive or 40 minute flight.
If rumours are true and he and his family have been doing that because of Covid that is a very stupid strategy, especially coming from a billionaire. First of all because in medical emergencies you have to travel 1000+ miles to the closest decent hospital (or to the hospital that can save your child's life), even if you have the fastest jet always on call that takes time.
And second, apart from living in the middle of Siberia [1] or in the Amazon jungle with literally no contact with anyone, believing that you won't get Covid in Fiji because it's more isolated is just a wrong premise. Unless they are airlifted all your supplies get, well, supplied to you via direct human contact, no matter how much you try just one small slip/moment of not paying attention can make the difference between being infected and not being infected. And if you do get infected it's better to be located close to a hospital, not literally on an island in the middle of the Pacific.
The pacific islands seem to have done rather well in preventing Covid to take hold. Because they basically closed all borders early on. Fiji seems to have gotten quickly rid of covid with the first wave and ever since had no cases. Besides Fiji being said to be an overall nice place to be in, it certainly was pleseant as there were no restrictions for those on the island.
That’s my point, too, the inevitable will come, at one point or another. Countries like Thailand or Vietnam used to be relatively Covid-free until a few months ago and were given as positive examples.
Vaccines are definitely making a difference at this point. But I think we'll find, to the degree we can make sense of a lot of noisy data, that a lot of what people ascribed to cultural, behavioral, and political differences based on their own leanings will be seen as largely happenstance.
There is a vaccination now. So to the degree that some locations were able to get through the pre-vaccine timeline, presumably (assuming people get vaccinated there) they'll end up with better--although not perfect--outcomes overall.
It does make a huge difference to keep it out until the population could be vaccinated. No casualties, no sick. And that despite of no masks or other precautions.
Am I missing something? I looked it up and it says Fiji has not just one, but 25 hospitals. Some of them are small and can't handle anything too severe, but they do still have a large number of hospitals it seems. Are you saying none of these hospitals are capable of saving somebody's life if they have covid?
Is the healthcare system in New Zealand better than the states?