Health Care Numbers

If I had a New Year's Resolution, it would be to post more. That's a good resolution, but it would have to mean more of this - one liners! politics!

But seriously - I find this story, and the comments on it (Ezra Klein; Lawyers, Guns and Money) - well - fascinating wouldn't be the word, but.... health care in this country is a fascinating subject. You can hear employers whining about their costs - pointintg in horror to a powerpoint slide showing that the medical profession gets paid - employees get the services - and employers pay: how unfair to the employers! time for emplyees to pay for their own prescriptions! Yet should you suggest a fairly obvious answer: universal health care - but lord, the terror that would cause!

But - maybe, seeing numbers like the ones in that story - that the US spends almost twice as much money on health care, per person, than what any of Canada, France or Australia pays (well more than twice what England spends) - that the US government spends more per person on health care than any of those 4 countries - and the US has the lowest life expectancy and highest infant mortality rates of the five - I mean.... anyone but an insurer is going to start to wonder if there might not be a better way.