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9 things Americans need to learn from the rest of the world’s health care systems

BY MANY measures the world has never been in better health. Since 2000 the number of children who die before they are five has fallen by almost half, to 5.6m. Life expectancy has reached 71, a gain of five years. More children than ever are vaccinated. Malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS are in retreat.

Yet the gap between this progress and the still greater potential that medicine offers has perhaps never been wider. At least half the world is without access to what the World Health Organisation deems essential, including antenatal care, insecticide-treated bednets, screening for cervical cancer and vaccinations against diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough. Safe, basic surgery is out of…

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  Everybody Covered

What the US can learn from other countries’ health systems.

 Dylan Scott answers 9 key questions about universal health care around the world

Vox policy reporter Dylan Scott traveled to Taiwan, Australia, and the Netherlands to see their health systems.

 The promise and peril of universal health care

Healthy populations translate into productive and stable nations. Universal health care (UHC) is a pragmatic and ethical ideal that, thanks to social and economic progress, seems almost achievable. However, UHC means different things in different contexts.

 The Truth on Wait Times in Universal Coverage Systems

Discussions of wait times often ignore the fundamental reality that, for many patients, wait times are already long. Where a patient lives has a significant effect on their wait time, largely due to provider concentration in more urban areas compared with more rural ones.

 Why doesn’t the United States have universal health care? The answer has everything to do with race

One hundred and fifty years after the freed people of the South first petitioned the government for basic medical care, the United States remains the only high-income country in the world where such care is not guaranteed to every citizen.

 Why the road to universal health care in America looks rocky

Implementing a single-payer system could be costly and disruptive.

Articles of Interest

Health Care: A Universal Problem Without A Universal Solution

The United States, like Canada, isn't under the demographic strain that looms over Japan (though aging baby boomers will add stress to the health care system). Instead, the disagreement in Washington boils down to access to care, cost of coverage, inequalities in the health care system, and the line between personal and governmental responsibility -- age-old disputes in the United States.

Here's a Map of the Countries That Provide Universal Health Care (America's Still Not on It)

The handful of developing countries that provide universal access to health care include oil-rich Saudi Arabia and Oman, Latin success story Costa Rica, Kyrgyzstan, and, famously, Cuba, among a few others.

If Universal Health Care Is The Goal, Don't Copy Canada

Discussion of the Canadian model is worthy of inclusion in such a debate, but more in terms of “what to avoid” than as a model for reform. The reality of Canadian health care is that it is comparatively expensive and imposes enormous costs on Canadians in the form of waiting for services, and limited access to physicians and medical technology. This isn’t something any country should consider replicating.

Medicare Extra for All

Medicare Extra for All would guarantee universal coverage and eliminate underinsurance. It would guarantee that all Americans can enroll in the same high-quality plan, modeled after the highly popular Medicare program. At the same time, it would preserve employer-based coverage as an option for millions of Americans who are satisfied with their coverage.

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Why is it so difficult to provide universal health care?

Universal Coverage Is Not Single Payer Healthcare

While other countries debate (and then implement) different funding mechanisms, they all start with UHC – which is less about how healthcare is funded and focuses more on who has access to healthcare.

Universal health coverage alone won’t radically improve global health

In ideal terms, UHC would cover as many people as possible with an essential package of health-care services without making them pay upfront. But right now countries define this differently, making it easy to mask how effective health services are and how many people they’re actually reaching. Many countries report having implemented universal health coverage — but each country offers quite different levels of services and financial protection, to different portions of the population.

Universal Healthcare Doesn't Mean Waiting Longer to See a Doctor

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund shows that people in other industrialized nations get doctors' appointments faster than Americans do.

Universal healthcare: the affordable dream

Universal healthcare is often presented as an idealistic goal that remains out of reach for all but the richest nations. That’s not the case, writes Amartya Sen. Look at what has been achieved in Rwanda, Thailand and Bangladesh.

Why Does the Left Want Universal Health Care? Britain’s Is on Its Deathbed

The U.K.’s government-run healthcare system, the National Health Service, turns 70 this month. There’s not much to celebrate. The NHS is collapsing. Patients routinely face treatment delays, overcrowded hospitals, and doctor shortages. Even its most ardent defenders admit that the NHS is in crisis. Yet American progressives want to import this disastrous model. About one in three Democratic senators and more than half of Democratic representatives support single-payer health care. Why? The British experiment with socialized medicine has been a monumental failure. It would be foolish to repeat that mistake here.

Why the U.S. never got universal health care

Every fight over the Affordable Care Act is a reminder of the bigger truth about the U.S. health care system: It's really a patchwork, not a system, because we never decided what our priorities were. Here's a look at how it developed and why it's not the kind of health care safety net other countries have.

Why the US does not have universal health care, while many other countries do

Its culture is unusually individualistic, favoring personal over government responsibility; lobbyists are particularly active, spending billions to ensure that private insurers maintain their status in the health system; and our institutions are designed in a manner that limits major social policy changes from happening.

Resources

10 Countries With Universal Health Care Have Freer Economies Than The U.S.

What’s striking about the list is that of the eleven countries ahead of the U.S. in economic freedom, ten have achieved universal coverage. Many Americans on both the right on the left subscribe to the myth that the U.S. has a free-market health care system. It doesn’t. U.S. government entities spend more per-capita on health care than all but two other countries in the world.

United States of Care

The mission of United States of Care is to ensure that every single American has access to quality, affordable health care regardless of health status, social need, or income.