There are 2 manner ins which I could have invested twice as much on doughnuts. I might have bought twice as numerous doughnutsI could have purchased the very same variety of doughnuts however got really fancy ones and paid two times as much, or some combination thereof. Right? If we're investing twice as much as other high-income countries, we're achieving that by either doing twice as much health care, paying twice as much for the same quantity of health care, or some mix.
Overall costs is amount times cost. This concept that we're overusing healthcare, that we're doing so much to our patients, we're providing so much health care, that's why we invest a lot. All the policy things is about attempting to lower that overuse, our culture of overuse. I would state that much of the policy focus has actually been on the quantity side of things.
Let's take a look at the data. One hypothesis I often hear is, as an American culture, we fast to go the doctorat the drop of the hat, I get a little discomfort, Americans are off to see the doctor. We initially ask the concern, let's take a look at doctor visits per capita (how much is health care).
This is doctor gos to per capita in a given year: The mean has to do with 6. 6, and the United States is about four. By the way, in Japan, the mean is 13. The average Japanese sees their medical professional more than once a month. For every single 24-year-old who hasn't entered four years, there are people who are going every other week.
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6 and we're a good bit listed below that. We're not seeing the physician as much as these other nations. Then individuals look at that and say, "Ah, possibly the problem is not enough. Inadequate avoidance, insufficient medical care, and it's all causing a lot of hospitalizations. The issue is overuse of healthcare facilities.
We stated, let's look at hospital discharges per population. And here is the mean, right, 149 per thousand population. And here is the United States: a bit listed below average. Interestingly, Germany appears like a little bit of the outlier, where hospitalizations per population are much, much higher. The other thingso this is simply hospitalizations, right? Hospital discharges per populationanybody have a sense of how our lengths of stay compare to those of other nations, these other countries? We're method much shorter, method shorter.
is? Yeah, 3. In the Medicare population it's like four, 4 and a half, since they're a bit older, but in the 3 to four days. In Japan, about 14. Right? I remained in Japan a couple of years ago going to a community healthcare facility. It was impressive to me. There were patients relaxing playing cards around a table.
Right? It's like they got the 4 days of IV, then they changed to the oral, and now we're simply observing them 2 days post-oral antibiotics, just ensuring they're great. It's intriguing in regards to, if you consider it: fewer hospitalizations, much shorter lengths of stay. And what you recognize is we spend far fewer days in the healthcare facility than any other high-income nation.
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The third, on this overutilization bit is that, the problem is we do too many tests and treatments. I put a little asterisk therein to advise myself to make a point, which is, obviously, when you speak about we do a lot of tests and procedures, a big part of that hypothesisa big part of the driving factor in the policy world, and I more than happy to get into more on thisis the sense that the issue is that the physicians in Americawe're just out there overtesting, overprocedurizing, cost for service.
So, let's take a look at some empirical information, and there's a bit of assistance for a few of this and not a lot for others, but let's take a look at the information. MRIs. MRIs, we are high. Sure, we have more MRIs per population than typical, however not some crazy outlier. Knee replacements, Rehabilitation Center here we truly are primary.

We have more obesity than nearly all of these countries, in fact, than any of these nations, so it's not an overall surprise that we're going to get more knee replacements. Hip replacements, I anticipated equivalent numbers on hip replacements. I stated, "Oh, our knee replacements are high, our hip replacements are going to be high." Surprisingly, not so much.
Meaning, again, we see Germany revealing up near the top, but we're in fact a little below par. Coronary angioplasty, a procedure that has actually gotten a lot of attention for concerns about overuse. Sure enough, we're a bit on the high side, and here's Germany once again ... Again, what we see is we're a little high on some things however not necessarily others, and here's Germany on coronary angioplasty.
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health care cost is mostly about supplying excessive care, about overutilization. Right? I don't see it. We have less hospitalizations, fewer medical professional sees - what countries have universal health care. Tests and treatments, I view as a variety. Right? We do more MRIs, and knee replacements, and angioplasties. We do less hip replacements. The method I consider it is, when it pertains to usage of health care services, we're above average on some things, we're second-rate on other things, and usually, we're pretty averageon usage.
Another fast one, I'm going to simply reveal you this data and then keep going. Really, this is one I've even said publiclywithout data and it turns out I was wrongthe one concept that has actually turned up over and over again is that all these nations are mostly primary care, we're primarily professionals, which the specialist-primary care physician mix is off.
Then the first time my colleaguesI remember they entered into my office and they said here's the data on specialized mixand the data was that here was the mean throughout these nations, and here was the U.S., right in the middle. I didn't think it. I just thought this can't be right.
The proportion of Go here doctors who are primary care, and on the right is Sweden and Denmark, where it's only 2233% in France, 54% of medical professionals are main carethe most significant difficulty with this figure is everyone calls it all various terms. Is it general practitioners? Is it generalists? Is it Mental Health Facility medical care physicians? What we did was we stated, we do not care what you call it, let's discuss what individuals are really performing in the workplace.
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And after that we went to both national stats offices of each of these nations as well as 3 to 5 professionals from each country, and we revealed them their information (which of the following is a trend in modern health care across industrialized nations?). I remember speaking with the guys from Switzerland and saying, "Hey, we find that 48% of your medical professionals are medical care, based on this meaning.
The 43% for the U.S. originates from the Kaiser Household Structure, which is an excellent source of information, using the AMA Masterfile nationwide service. There are other studies and data from the U.S. that put the number a little lower. We can have an argument about which number is best, but this is our finest at doing an apples-to-apples contrast. what is single payer health care?.
