Thanks for that first link that shows that Sweden's Healthcare costs 9 % of GDP, that's sounds quite cheap compared to the US cost of 17% of GDP
The per capita GDP of the US is about 22-26% higher than that of Sweden. So aren't Americans allowed to spend more on health care, if they are wealthier? Or do you deny them even that?
And let's look at the rest of the apples and oranges.
Unlike Sweden's, the US' health care system has major expenses due to illegal immigrants. As I already pointed out, somewhere between 2.6% and 6.6% of the US population consists of illegal immigrants ... and by law they MUST be treated just like US citizens if they go to US hospitals and ERs. I cited numerous examples of how that group is impacting the cost and availability of health care in the United States. In fact, some have even been given multiple liver transplants for free due by our health care system.
In comparison, the Swede's have a much smaller fraction (as a percent of the population) of illegals and deny them medical care, unless they pay for it themselves (
http://www.thelocal.se/11924/20080522/ ). If Swedes had to supply the same medical treatment to the same fraction of illegal population that we do, their health care costs would be dramatically higher than they now are ... perhaps 5 percent.
And as I already pointed out, not only do Swedes make illegal aliens pay for health care, they often charge them exorbitant amounts for that treatment, compared to what they charge their own citizens for the same treatment. In effect, they are subsidizing the health care of their own UHC members on the backs of illegal immigrants. Don't let them do that and those UHC costs would go up even more.
Here's another apple and orange that you need to consider. To get it's health care result, Sweden has about 3.3 doctors per 1,000. The US has only 2.3-2.6 doctors per 1000. So to get their result, it looks like we need to increase the number of doctors in this country by about 50%. But do you think we can do that and keep down costs? Before you answer, consider how the pay scales for doctors in Sweden compare to those in the US?
According to
http://mdsalaries.blogspot.com/2008/05/doctor-salaries-in-sweden.html , in 2007 the average Swedish doctor salary was between $74,000 to $85,000. In comparison, the average salary of doctors in the US looks to be well over $120,000 (
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Doctor_of_Medicine_(MD)_Degrees/Salary and
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/People_with_Jobs_as_Physicians_/_Doctors/Salary ). In fact, this
http://www.the-travel-nurse.com/doctor_best_salaries.html states that
In 2003 there were 111,990 family and general practice doctors in the United States earning approximately $139,640 per year.
... snip ...
In 2003 there were 50,140 general internists in the United States earning an average of $160,130 per year.
... snip ...
In 2003 there were 23,790 anesthesiologists earning an average of $184,880 in the United States.
... snip ...
There are approximately 19,180 Obstetricians and Gynecological doctors working in the United States with the latest data being from 2003. The average annual salary is $180,660
... snip ...
According the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics there were 26,910 Pediatricians in 2003. They earn a low of $77,120 to a high of $178,050 per year. The average doctor salaries for pediatricians is $143,300 per year.
... snip ...
In 2003 there were 19,530 psychiatrists working in the United States earning an average salary of $139,300.
... snip ...
There were 49,730 surgeons in the United States in 2003 earning a range of $113,000 to $210,000 per year on average.
... snip ...
Podiatrists in 2003 numbered 7800 and had average annual earnings of $106,430.
And that was back in 2003. Check it out yourself (here's another source:
http://www.physiciandepot.com/Physician-Salaries.aspx ) and you'll find that US doctors earn far more than Swedish doctors. In fact, two to three times as much, on average.
Now of course, part of that difference is that Swedish doctors are under the thumb of the government. Their single payer system applies to doctors as well. If that becomes the case in the US (despite the claim by Obama that's not what he's intending), no doubt there will be tremendous downward pressure on US doctor salaries. But the truth is that in a country like the US, the incomes of highly skilled health care workers, like doctors, are determined partly with reference to the incomes that equally capable and skilled people can make in other occupations. If you artificially lower the income of doctors and not those of other professions, the more capable people are going to choose to enter those other occupations rather than medicine. And the quality of doctors will naturally go down. It's simple logic and human nature. So if you don't want the quality of our physicians to drop at the same time you force their salaries lower, you are going to have to cap the salaries of everyone else in the US? Is that Obama's plan? Looks like he's already made a start in the auto industry.
Or perhaps you don't really care about the quality of doctors? I hear that Swedish doctors are giving even their European neighbors problems.
http://www.thelocal.se/19630/20090524/
Swedish doctors criticized after botched UK ops
Elderly British patients were left nursing their injuries after botched operations by Swedish doctors brought in to cut waiting lists, British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reports.
A new report has shown that as many as one in three of the patients treated by the so-called "flying doctors" from Scandinavia suffered poor outcomes with one in five needing repeat operations.
... snip ...
An audit, published in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery, of more than 200 patients who underwent knee surgery between 2004 and 2006 has revealed that the number of below par operations was ten times the national UK average.
There are other reasons US doctors have higher salaries than Swedes (and doctors in many other countries). US doctors make a larger financial investment in their education ... which is better education, by the way (for example, in Sweden a surgical resident will perform 300-400 surgeries during his residency while in the US that number is closer to 1000). Those doctors must recover the large amount of debt they incur. If they can't do that, do you think anyone is going to want to be a doctor in the US? Again, how are you going to duplicate the Swedish system unless you also change the way doctors are educated in the US and who pays for their education? It looks like the Swedish system basically has the government doing that. Is that what you are proposing for the US too? Do you really believe the government can do that well and without impacting the quality of US doctors. The facts suggest otherwise.
Another way the Swedes keep health care costs down is to push patients through the hospital system quickly. The average length of stay is just over 4 days. In the US, the average length of stay is a little over 5 days. Guess we'd better shorten those hospital stays by about 20% to keep things comparable. Right? But I wonder if our populace will like that?
Now I already pointed out some complaints with quality of health care in the Swedish system. One of them is long waiting times. A health care guarantee was established by Sweden at the end of 2005 that no patient would have to wait for more than three months once it has been determined what care was needed. How has that worked out?
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601085&sid=aRXJhrzR9yzc&refer=europe
Jan 25 (2009)
... snip ...
Waiting times for medical care in Sweden are the longest in Europe, according to the Health Consumer Powerhouse, which analyzes health-care systems in the region. About 33,000 people had been waiting more than three months for surgery or other major treatments at the end of August, an increase of 43 percent from May, a report by the Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions showed.
In fact, I read the Swedish government even more recently introduced a
six-month waiting guarantee. And despite that
http://spectator.org/blog/2009/04/07/socialized-medicine-an-interna "Earlier this year, the National Board of Health and Welfare found that nearly 45% of patients have longer wait times than are supposedly guaranteed by the health care system."
Now in comparison, a recent survey of wait times in US cities indicated the following average time to appointment for various specialties (
http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/theh...-when-appointment-wait-times-in15-cities.aspx ):
Cardiology - 15.5 days
Dermatology - 22.1 days
Obstetrics-Gynecology - 27.5 days
Orthopedic Surgery - 16.8 days
Family Practice - 20.3 days
All well under a month.
You think this is minor? Wait times have consequences. People sometimes die waiting for diagnosis and treatment. That being said, I leave you with a bunch of other horror stories concerning Sweden's *wonderful* health care system.
http://www.jpands.org/vol13no1/larson.pdf
Lessons from Sweden’s Universal Health System: Tales from the Health-care Crypt
... snip ...
there is a side of this issue that rarely is told, especially not by advocates of a government medical monopoly. It is the story of those who pay the price for the serious rationing in a
single-payer system.
Rationing of care is a reality under universal health insurance. Yet, its advocates seem universally oblivious to it. In an effort to unmask the reality of “universal coverage,” here are some actual case histories of real people with real experiences. They were reported by Swedish news media, in some instances numerous times.
... snip a bunch of examples of children dying from treatable problems ...
You do not have to be a child to die from denial of care in
Sweden.
... snip an example of an adult dying from treatable cancer that went untreated ...
Even those who do not die from encountering denials of care suffer considerably under Sweden’s universal coverage. Mr. D., a multiple sclerosis patient, lives in Gothenburg, a city of 500,000. His doctor told him about a new medicine that is considered a breakthrough in MS treatment. But, when the doctor put in a request to have Mr. D. treated with it, the request was denied. Reason: it would cost 33 percent more than the old medicine, and that was more than the government was willing to pay. When the government denied Mr. D. the new medicine on the grounds that the subsidies would cost too much, he offered to pay the full cost of the medicine himself. He was denied the option to pay full cost out of his own pocket because, the bureaucrats said, it would set a bad precedent and lead to unequal access to medicine. In Sweden, there is no way to obtain access to medication outside the government-run system.
... snip ...
This is reality in Malmo, Sweden’s third largest city. To see a physician the 280,000 residents of Malmo have to go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist. Except during business hours, only one of the two clinics is open to serve all the city’s residents. As a result the clinic is severely overcrowded. The security guards serve two functions. They keep patients from becoming unruly as they sit and wait for hours to see a doctor, and they keep new patients from entering the center when the waiting room is considered full.
... snip ...
In Gothenburg, a hospital was blessed with having a talented orthopedist on its staff. Dr. Leif Sward worked part time for the government-run hospital, part time for a local soccer club at its private orthopedic clinic, and part time for the British national soccer team. You would expect a man with such credentials and experience to be considered a prized asset in a tax-supported hospital. But the government bureaucrats were unhappy with the fact that Dr. Sward was not working full time for them. They considered his work for the private health clinic “competing employment”—the soccer players should come to the tax-supported hospitals instead so as to increase their revenues. So they gave Dr. Sward an ultimatum: quit the private sector or leave us. Dr. Sward chose the latter. By giving Dr. Sward this ultimatum, the medical bureaucrats showed that their priority was to control and stifle competition and choice, an action contrary to the interests of patients.
... snip ...
In the midst of all this, you would expect Sweden, oft cited as the epitome of equality, to at least care for women’s health better than any other nation. Not so. Sweden is suffering badly from lack of physicians with expertise in interpreting mammograms. The city of Uppsala, with 200,000 people, well known for one of Europe’s oldest universities, has only one specialist in mammography. This is not unique. Sweden’s National Cancer Foundation reports that the situation is so precarious that within a few years most women in Sweden will not have access to mammography. This is, in part, because all medical schools are under government control and subject to the same budget-cap policies as the rest of the system
... snip ...
It has been estimated that a Swedish-style single-payer health insurance system in America would cost the median-income household some $17,200 per year in health care taxes.
... snip ...
If we implement a universal, single-payer model in America today, the negative effects will reliably occur about a generation from now. The question that we need to ask ourselves as we enter the election season is this: Are we willing to send that bill down the road for our children to pay?
Obviously, based on Obama's 10 trillion dollar deficit creating budgets, he is willing to send that bill to our children. But do American's really want that? I don't think so.
The last link is totally bogus though and the Tax rates you are reading wrong, VAT is 25%(most stuff) or 12%(food bought in resturants) or 6 % (books), there is no other sales tax than VAT.
Even if I misinterpreted that column of the table, my point stands. Swedes pay far more in taxes than we currently do.
http://www.thelocal.se/17964/20090303/ "If hidden taxes are also included, the total highest marginal tax rate on labour is a full 74 percent in Sweden." And one consequence of those higher taxes and all the freebies offered by the government, has been higher welfare dependency. In 1970, 11 percent of Sweden's adult population was living off welfare rather than work. In 2006, this figure was 22-26%. This is their real unemployment rate. This is one consequence of socialism.
Here's an op-ed on the matter (in swedish only I'm afraid)
The quote "Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact on innovation. He said, "In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today's slimmed-down health care." is even translated wrong in a quite important bit.
Fair enough. But do you think changing the word to "economy-driven" changes the FACT that Sweden's health care (as well as its hospitals) is government-run or changes what the professor says Sweden's system does to stymie curiousity and new knowledge?
