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Given the avalanche-prone nature of the column
fodder
bin in my health-free workplace, it must be time
to tend to the pile. At the top, a man takes issue with my
statement that France spends less on health care than we
do.
At hand is the 1992 Statistical Abstract of the United States. It is reasonably current, and it was prepared when a reliable Republican ran the Department of Commerce, so its data should not be tainted by any liberal hands.
According to the chart on page 829, the United States in
1990 devoted 12.4 percent of its gross national product to
total health expenditures.
France spent 8.9 percent.
Per-capita, we spent $2,566; they spent $1,379.
Some years have passed since I took a math class, but back then, 2,566 was more than 1,379.
Of the 24 countries listed, the United States spent by far the most by either reckoning. Second-place in per-capita spending went to Sweden, at $1,421, and in percentage of gross domestic product, to Canada, at 9.0 percent.
Now, if we got more by spending more, this spending might be prudent. There are two common measures of public health: life expectancy and infant mortality rate. The United States is nowise a leader in either.
Our current life-expectancy is 75.7; in Iceland, which spends about half as much as we do per capita, it's 79. Our annual infant mortality rate is 10.3 deaths per 1,000 births; that's higher than the rate for the Greeks, who spend only $406 a year -- a sixth of what we spend -- per capita.
You would think that congressional Republicans, always eager to find ways to cut government spending (about 40 percent of our health-care spending comes from various levels of government) would look at these numbers and conclude that our system is horribly inefficient.
Instead, we keep hearing that America has the finest health care system in the world. And it probably is, if you're one of the insurance companies or medical associations which contributes to congressional campaigns. Or if you're the winner of one of those campaigns, and can thus enroll in one of those awful government-run health-care programs.
Further, have you ever heard of a French or German minister announcing that his country's health-care system is an expensive disaster, and that they've got to move to an American-style system?
If our system truly were the best in the world, don't you think the rest of the world would try to emulate ours? Either that never happens, or else the news is censored by the international liberal media conspiracy. Even Margaret Thatcher, a firm believer in free markets, never tried to dismantle Britain's socialistic health-care system during her tenure as that nation's prime minister.
There was a lot wrong with the Clinton health-care proposal. But there's also a lot wrong with the current American system, which will continue to get worse.
Next item in my pile is a letter from a Colorado Springs woman, berating me for saying that Jan. 22 is Washington's birthday, when in fact it is Feb. 22.
She's absolutely right. It slipped by me and by various editors who usually catch such lapses, thereby keeping me from looking like an idiot.
But as an aside, note that if there was a calendar in the house on the day George Washington was born, it would have said Feb. 11, 1731, not the Feb. 22, 1732, in our reference books. In 1752, the British Empire changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar, skipping 10 days and changing the new year from March 25 to Jan. 1. Feb. 22, 1732, is what Washington's birthday would have been if the current calendar had been in effect then.
Now this from a software-developer friend here. It's a letter he received from one Alan E. Eldridge, president of International Programmers, Inc., in Aurora.
Why pay $25 or $50 or more an hour to American programmers when there are lots of programmers in other countries, probably India, who'll work for less?
You can reduce your expenses by not paying Social
Security, Medicare, unemployment tax, workmen's
compensation, benefits and other overhead costs,
Eldridge promises. Our offshore programmers can give you
this advantage for 50 to 75 percent less than you would pay
for 'in-house' or local contract programmers.
As an occasional local contract programmer,
I
seem to be taking this personally. More American jobs --
the kind of high-tech Third-Wave jobs that they're always
saying that our unemployed should be trained to do -- going
to Third-World sweatshops, that sort of thing.
But hey, this is just business, right? Here's a classic American entrepreneur, a Colorado enterprise at that, taking advantage of improved communications and the emerging global economy, in order to offer a vital new service, the international brokering of computer programming jobs.
Any day now, we may see Eldridge in our governor's office, accepting congratulations from Roy Romer for his vision, acumen and persistent efforts toward developing Colorado as a center for international commerce. Makes you proud to be a fellow Coloradan, doesn't it?
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