Health Care Around the World - Myths and Facts

the myths:

1. It's all socialized medicine out there.
2. Overseas, care is rationed through limited choices or long lines.
3. Foreign health-care systems are inefficient, bloated bureaucracies.
4. Cost controls stifle innovation.
5. Health insurance has to be cruel.

the facts:

1. Germans can sign up for any of the nation's 200 private health insurance plans - a broader choice than any American has.

2. In Austria & Germany, if a doctor diagnoses a person as "stressed," medical insurance pays for weekends at a health spa.

3. In Japan, waiting times are so short that most patients don't bother to make an appointment.

4. U.S. health insurance companies have the highest administrative costs in the world; 20 c per $ for nonmedical costs.

5. Japanese go to the doctor 15 times a year, three times the U.S. rate. They have twice as many MRI scans and X-rays.

6. In the United States, an MRI scan of the neck costs about $1,500. In Japan, the identical scan costs $98.

7. "Foreign health insurance plans exist only to pay people's medical bills, not to make a profit."

8. 700,000 Americans go into bankruptcy/year because of medical bills. Number of medical bankruptcies = zero in France, Britain, Japan, Germany.