U.S. health care called
"expensive, inadequate"The U.S. health care system is "the most expensive and most inadequate in the developed world," charged the Hew England Journal of Medicine in a recent series of sharply critical articles.
U.S. citizens, said the Journal, pay $3,925 per person
for health care each year, far more than the $2,500 spent for each person in Switzerland, the second most expensive country.About 13.6% of the money in the U.S. economy is currently devoted to health care, and that rate is exected to rise to 16.6% in 2002, the Journal declared.
It listed three reasons for the excessively high cost f health care in the U.S.:
"1) Physicians in the U.S. are paid more than those in other countries for the same amount of work, 2) a day in the hospital costs more, and 3) the new expensive technologies are embraced more rapidly."
The Journal said the U.S. health care system hits the poor and families hardest. For example, those over 65 with incomes below the poverty level and who qualify for
Medicaid assistance typically spend 35% of their income on health care. The rate is even higher—about 50%— for people who do not receive Medicaid.The biggest chunk of health care spending, 38%, goes for hospital care; another 19.9% ($217.6 billion) is paid to doctors; and about 8% ($78.8 billion) goes for the purchase of prescription drugs.