Wonkblog - "Wonkbook: Change is painful. But the health-care status quo is a complete disaster."

[TomCADem]

The MSM has largely ignored the latest news that the rise in healthcare costs is among lowest in memory due in large part to the ACA. Likewise, while the media repeatedly repeats Darrell Issa's talking points about the ACA website, it never considers or discusses the pre-ACA status quo that lead to the passage of the ACA.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/18/wonkbook-change-is-painful-but-the-health-care-status-quo-is-a-complete-disaster/

As often happens, the prospect of reform has led to a sudden eruption of affection for the health-care status quo. The airwaves are alive with impassioned protests against the idea that anyone might change a market that relies on discriminating against the old, the sick, the female, and people who don't read the fine print of insurance policies. This is the best health care in the world, you know.

The Commonwealth Fund's latest survey of international health systems stands as a refreshing reality check. Their data compares the U.S. to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom on a host of health-system measures, both objective (like diabetes amputations) and subjective (like satisfaction). The results are a reminder of why reform is so badly needed.

Start with cost. Americans spend 17.7 percent of GDP on health care. No one else spends even 12 percent. Let's make that more concrete: If Americans only spent 12 percent of GDP on health care we would have saved $893 billion in 2012.

The reason isn't that Americans get more health care than anyone else. We have more uninsured than anyone else. We have fewer physicians per capita than anyone but the Japanese. We go to the doctor less often than anyone but the Swiss. We don't have more hospital beds than other developed countries, and when we do go to the hospital, we don't stay longer.