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Health care MUST be in public provision and accessible to all in order to . . .

Summary:
From Grazia Ietto Gillies The expenditure given [in the chart] include both private and public expenditure as far as I know. That the US have a VERY inefficient health care system is well known but it can only be made clear by looking also at outcomes such as Infant mortality rate or life expectancy alla available from OECD health statistics. Why such inefficiency. Well then you have to look at the organization of health systems not just the stats. In countries with high private provision a lot of the expenditure goes to insurance companies, lawyers for litigation, profits of health care companies and of insurance companies and pharmaceuticals etc. Apart from these GROSS inefficiencies, systems that rely heavily on private provision and insurance cannot be expected to cope with PUBLIC

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from Grazia Ietto Gillies

The expenditure given [in the chart] include both private and public expenditure as far as I know. That the US have a VERY inefficient health care system is well known but it can only be made clear by looking also at outcomes such as Infant mortality rate or life expectancy alla available from OECD health statistics.

Why such inefficiency. Well then you have to look at the organization of health systems not just the stats. In countries with high private provision a lot of the expenditure goes to insurance companies, lawyers for litigation, profits of health care companies and of insurance companies and pharmaceuticals etc.

Apart from these GROSS inefficiencies, systems that rely heavily on private provision and insurance cannot be expected to cope with PUBLIC health issues like Covid19. If the poor people get it – and they are more likely for many reasons including overcrowding habitations – the rich may also get Covid.

I hope that once we emerge from this nightmare the message becomes clearer: anything to do with health care MUST be in public provision and accessible to all in order to protect us all and achieve efficiencies.

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