On Oct 2, 2007, at 11:27 AM, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
> Doug quoted:
>
>
> [Health Affairs article is at <http://content.healthaffairs.org/cgi/
> content/full/hlthaff.26.6.w678/DC1>.]
>
> Obesity may push U.S. health costs above Europe: study
>
>
> [WS:] May be. But I think there are systemic incentives that
> reward the
> health industrial complex (hospitals, big pharma, and insurance
> companies)
> for costly and often unnecessary procedures instead of less costly
> (nut
> often more effective ones.)
Oh yeah. The U.S. health system is more expensive in every aspect - administration, drug costs, docs' salaries, number of procedures, etc. You can't isolate just one aspect. But it is interesting that we are sicker, and because of preventable things. Ditto poverty, which isn't good for health either.
I was also surprised that we're smokier than the Euros. I'd thought everyone in Europe smoked and only the poor and neurotic smoked in the U.S.
Doug