This week's reflection paper covers Dr. Sean Flynn's The Cure That Works
Comparisons of the United States’ Health Care Spending Versus Other Nations
Dr. Sean Flynn states that the United States spends approximately 18% of its GDP on just health care. Canada and Singapore, for example, spend 10% and 5% of their respective GDPs on health care. One might think, how significant is the 13% GDP gap between our spending and Singapore. To give some perspective, the US spends 4% on the military and 5% on social security. I personally think that, if our government were able to narrow down our GDP to 13%, they would bicker amongst themselves for a long time over what to do with such a large surplus in spending. Dr. Flynn suggests that the government could take great steps in terms of poverty or savings, but considering the current political climate, it would take a great deal of time to determine what to do with that extra budget.
How Does Singapore Compare?
Although Singapore spends a fraction of its % GDP on health care compared to the US, Dr. Flynn communicates that their system operates signifcantly cheaper, higher quality, and more consumer-friendly.
Dr. Flynn states that they have some of the best life expectancy, infant mortality, healthy years of life, maternal mortality. He implies that these positive health statistics outlooks are because of their well-established effective health care system, but I disagree. I do believe that health care does positively impact these rates, but other factors go into a population’s health. Culture and lifestyle mentality are very different when comparing Singapore and the United States. The average Singaporean may exercise more often and eat healthier than the average American. Both exercise and healthy diets are not strongly tied with the health care industry. The US can have an identically excellent health care system to Singapore but our health statistics won’t reach their levels of expectancy, infant mortality, or amount of healthy years of life. Overhauling the health care system won’t entirely change the fact that us Americans like eating greasy cheeseburgers more often than Singaporeans. Yes, Dr. Flynn does contest this argument, but I believe that this argument should play a greater factor in his conversations about life expectancy and other important population health statistics.
Singapore’s health care system is incredibly market-driven and consumer friendly. The government also foots a great deal of the medical bill so it brings together the free-market aspects to drive down price and also the idea of free/greatly discounted health care. Dr. Flynn uses an example where you sit down at a restaurant, eat your dinner, but don’t know the cost of the meal until you see the check. I believe that this analogy truly speaks to the unorthodox, unintuitiveness, and brokenness of our current health care system. The Singapore model may or may not work in the United States, but I believe it is a better place to start than the first-party payer model.