Health Care By the Numbers (US and Finland)

A few tidbits from research I'm doing for a presentation:

United States

Annual income per capita: $44,070

Annual health care expense per capita: $6,174

%GDP on health care: 15.30

HCPC/IPC: 14.01

Lifetime expense (male): $463,050

Lifetime expense (female): $493,920

Life expectancy (male): 75

Life expectancy (female): 80

Healthy life expectancy (male): 67

Healthy life expectancy (female): 71

Deaths per 1000, 15-60 (male): 137

Deaths per 1000, 15-60 (female): 80

Child mortality rate (per 1000 under 5): 8

Infant mortality rate (per 1000): 7

Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 births): 4

Child mortality (annual): 35,000

Maternal mortality ratio (per 1000 births, reported): 8

Maternal mortality ratio (per 1000 births, adjusted): 11

Finland

Annual income per capita: $33,170

Annual health care expense per capita: $2,472

%GDP on health care: 7.60

HCPC/IPC: 7.45

Lifetime expense (male): $187,872

Lifetime expense (female): $205,176

Life expectancy (male): 76

Life expectancy (female): 83

Healthy life expectancy (male): 69

Healthy life expectancy (female): 71

Deaths per 1000, 15-60 (male): 132

Deaths per 1000, 15-60 (female): 57

Child mortality rate (per 1000 under 5): 3

Infant mortality rate (per 1000): 3

Neonatal mortality rate (per 1000 births): 2

Child mortality (annual): 35,000

Maternal mortality ratio (per 1000 births, reported): 6

Maternal mortality ratio (per 1000 births, adjusted): 7

HCPC/IPC is the ratio of Health Care Per Capita (dollars) to Income Per Capita (also dollars).

The figures for Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are comparable to Finland's, if not quite as impressive.

The numbers that stand out to me are the per capita incomes. In essence, they suggest that it's possible to reduce American's per capita income by 25% and still deliver better and more efficient health care. I'm not suggesting that everyone's pay get cut by a fourth, but consider where American health care could be given the great wealth of our country...

Sharon considers the angles. This one is a beaut:

Continuing with this week's musical theme:

I said to Hank Williams, how lonely does it get?

Hank Williams hasn't answered yet

But I hear him coughing all night long

A hundred floors above me in the Tower of Song

Leonard speaks for all songwriters in this quatrain: Whatever I know about loneliness, Hank Williams knows more. However good a songwriter I am, Hank Williams is a hundred floors above me. And all we mere mortals can ask for is an enigmatic cough of inspiration.

Now there's a guy who knows how to make an exit!

Viva Las Vegas

The seriousness and depth of contemporary politics came to the fore yesterday when Nevada Democrat Harry Reid joined Republican opponent Sharon Angle in opposing construction of a mosque and community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan, approximately 2200 miles from Las Vegas.

Citizen K. has learned that New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg conducted a conference call with Reid and Angle in which he expressed thanks for their concern. The precise responses of Reid and Angle are unknown, but I can reliably report on Bloomberg's end of the conversation:

"Senator, Ms. Angle, I'd like express my heartfelt gratitude for your interest in New York and your concern for the people living here...

"Yes, I do have to thank you. That you could make time to express your opinion about events in a city on the other side of the country when Nevada has a 14.2% unemployment rate and the highest foreclosure rate in the nation, well...I'm touched to say the least...

"Along those lines, though, I have concerns of my own that I'd like to run by you. As you may know, we have a lot of Catholics here in the Big Apple. New York is also, I'm proud to say, the home of many successful career women. Both groups have their notions and, well, the thing of it is...well...they're awfully offended by the whorehouses in Nevada and would like you to shut them down.

"Look, it's no skin off Elliott Spitzer's nose if a coed wants to go to Nevada to auction off her virginity, but it looks bad if I don't express the same interest in Nevada that you've so courageously shown in New York.

"I'd hate to see this become a political football. When you get right down to it, though, who can come out in favor of whorehouses? A pimp, maybe, but that's about it. Say, are either of you?...Oh, never mind: The less said the better."