This post is a response to the question "Do you think our health care system works? What are the flaws and what are the pros? Look at different countries." @anniebburg/week-11-questions-health-care posed by @anniebburg
Honestly, I have a very different opinion on this question after listening to Dr. Sean Flynn's take on healthcare and the pitfalls of the system in the United States. The healthcare system in the United States has very many flaws in the way that it is set up and truly has very little pros in my opinion.
What are the flaws of the current system?
Dr. Flynn started off his speech saying that the U.S. spends more money per capita on the healthcare system than any other in the world - 18% (Flynn, min 5). In comparison, the U.S. only. spends 4% on the military. With that, one would think that the system in the U.S. would be far better than any other in the world. The truth is, though, that it is not even close to being the best. Singapore, the country with the best healthcare system in the world, only spends 5% of GDP on healthcare - a 13% gap (Flynn, min 6). The major difference between the two is that Singapore has a market-based healthcare system with doctors competing so that consumers can shop around for the best prices for what they need, as opposed to the U.S. system of private. insurance/the government paying for it (Flynn, min 20). Thus, it is easy to take advantage of people in the U.S. because they have no idea what things are going to cost, they just get a bill 3 months later saying what they owe. It's a system that would not work in any other market, but for some reason it is the one that we have in the U.S.
What are some pros of the current system?
After watching Dr. Flynn's speech it is difficult to find pros to the system, but I would say that some pros are that there is more access to healthcare, and there is much more quality of healthcare in the United States.