xouper wrote: ↑Tue Dec 18, 2018 12:07 am
Anaxagoras wrote: ↑Mon Dec 17, 2018 5:52 am
. . . In 2017, the US spent $10,224 per capita on healthcare, Japan $4,717 per capita. So less than half.
Clearly 'Murica is "Doing It Wrong" when it comes to healthcare.
An obvious question occurs to me, which I don't (yet) know the answer. I'm just asking in case you would like to say more about that.
How do you know that the overall quality of health care in Japan is comparable to the US? To ask it another way, how do you know you're not comparing Cadillacs to Pintos?
And no, I won't demand evidences for your claim if you have better things to do with your time. 
Well I grew up in the US and I've been living in Japan since 2001 so I've had experiences with both health care systems, but I grant that that's just my own personal anecdotal experience. Also, I've never had anything extreme like cancer. Just minor medical issues for the most part. But I think I've received decent care in both countries. I also think there's a lot of people in the US, if given the option, can't really afford that Cadillac. If you were a person of limited means and the only kind of car you can buy is a Cadillac, you might wish that you had the option of buying a Pinto instead. It's still better than walking after all. But honestly, I don't think it's really like that.
The big difference here is that
everybody has insurance. At least, everyone legally in the country for over 3 months. And the two major insurance schemes, both administered by the government, allow costs to be controlled, and for prices to be made relatively uniform across the country. The problem in the US is not the quality of service, but the affordability of it. Every year hundreds of thousands of Americans declare bankruptcy due to medical bills. (The exact number is unclear, but some estimates put it over 600,000).
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/64300 ... cal-bills/
(This seems to be a pretty good article on the subject)
I could not seem to find comparable statistics for Japan unfortunately, but it seems to be "unheard of" in Japan.
BY the way, this is an article about the problems with Japan's health care system:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/ ... BhJuWngpaQ
Japan’s buckling health care system at a crossroads
Of course it isn't perfect, but most of the problems cited seem to be relatively less severe than those in the US.
In Japan, health care has long been likened to air and water — givens often taken for granted. Like all other developed countries except the United States, Japan has universal coverage, which means everyone is covered by the public health insurance program.
The government has long boasted that Japanese health care is first-class, affordable and helps extend its high life expectancy rates. In 2016, Japan was ranked first in the world in this category, with the average life span hitting 83.7 years.
“Our nation has achieved an average life expectancy and health care standards that are at the world’s top levels,” the health ministry declares on its website, citing four main features of the system: insurance for everyone — regardless of pre-existing conditions or economic status; free access, meaning patients are free to choose any hospital nationwide; high-level care at low cost; and the use of public money to maintain it.
But a closer look at the system tells another side of the story.
(problems exist, click the article if you want to read about them)
But:
Though premiums have risen over the years, medical services have been affordable for most people. Unlike in the U.S., stories of people going bankrupt due to medical bills are unheard of — at least so far.
Also, the government can sometimes use a heavy hand to control costs:
A case in point is an unprecedented decision made by the government in November to halve the official price of Opdivo, a biotechnology-driven lung cancer drug.
Costing ¥35 million per year per patient, there were fears that its widespread use could drain state coffers. But while the move sent shock waves through the nation’s pharmaceutical industry, not to mention knocking down stock prices of Ono Pharmaceutical Co., which developed and markets Opdivo, patients have remained totally unaffected.
Under the public insurance program, people undergoing costly treatments are exempted from paying more than a certain amount determined by their income level.
Basically there's a cap, which is determined by your income level, to how much you have to pay. Hence medical bankruptcies are "unheard of" in Japan. Also the government can hold down the cost of expensive pharmaceuticals by deciding, say, to cut the price in half.
A fool thinks himself to be wise, but a wise man knows himself to be a fool.
William Shakespeare
).
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