It would seem that although we do have one of the highest life expectancies, our healthcare cost is only second to the US.
It would seem that although we do have one of the highest life expectancies, our healthcare cost is only second to the US.
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I would have changed x and y. this is too irritating.
Yea but its unfair to compare 1st to 3rd world countries….
“only”
There is a lot of room for improvement.
Japan, HK & macao got a higher and Singapore, Italy, Spain and Austria just a slightly lower life expectancy.
Culture differences I belive are the largest reason.
It’s almost on par with Norway and Germany while our expectancy is higher. You could argue that it’s less social because the funding is degressive (rich people pay the same as poor people) but I think this is quite normal.
Also note that life expectancy is only one way to measure healthcare. You’re much less likely to die on average in a country that has excellent transportation infrastructure, good average education, good air and water standards, etc.
It does not make much sense comparing cost and not including GDP per capita or median income.
On this graph Germany for example is about 20-25% cheaper in healthcare but they also earn 50% less therefore we are way better of.
But medicine is not only about surviving but also living a comfortable life e.g. for some people artificial hips or knees ect. Would be important to also compare how many people have such things because they are expensive and will influence Cost on this graph.
Thanks for this graphic, which is the first I see with costs adjusted for PPP.
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3% more life for 30% more cost, doesn’t seem to make much sense. I’d be interested in a holistic rating of health as people age, not just how old they get; as I assume we’d see major differences there.
Our health insurance premiums have gone up steadily year after year since inception of the health insurance law in ’94, in total we’re up 225%, while overall inflation was very modest. It has become a tradition by now that every September Mr. Berset steps in front of the media and announces the yearly increase in healthcare spending and the related increase in premiums. If this keeps going, we’ll surpass the US sooner or later.
take the usa as a reference… no thanks lol
Idk why but I feel like it should have been inverted, cost in y axis and life expectancy in the x axis
Who designs such an awful graph? Invert the axis
Time to look at the Japanese system. Difference of cost between Japan and Switzerland is money stolen by health insurance?
now take into account gdp/capita…
Life expectancy isn’t the only measure of a good health system, and to be honest I’m surprised it’s not lower given how many people smoke here.
In Switzerland, everyone who needs and wants medical care will receive it.
In the USA, those who cannot afford medical care do not receive it.
But the per-capita numbers can only count those who actually pay, therefore it will underrepresent the cost of treatment in the USA.
Our <anything> cost is higher than pretty much any place. Have you had an electrician do some work recently?
So long as this money goes to doctors, nurses and staff who are then well trained, motivated and attracted to come here from all over the world then I’m good. AFAIK, the US has a different problem in which corporates make most of the money so people end with shit healthcare.
Having used both…the Swiss get what they pay for. The US healthcare system is a very very sad joke.
Healthcare on track to become USA 2.0
Lots of valid points and criticisms on this thread.
Id also like to mention that Life Expectancy is a lot more than just healthcare system.
There are a lot of cultural aspects to it:
– daily (passive) exercise like walking instead of taking a car to go grocery shopping
– active exercise (gym, swimming pool, jogging …)
– diet (eg. Obesity rate)
– quality of the environment (the air you breathe, the water you drink…)
Switzerland is also one of the highest cost of living countries: Everything is more expensive here.
Does this take “taxes” which go towards healthcare into account as cost? Or only what comes directly out of citizens bank accounts?
This chart means nothing, you should put the healthcare cost axis in proportion to the GDP per Capita.
switzerland has a pretty high life expectancy to all others though!
except japan, but i doubt they have it so high thanks to better hospitals and a more efficient healthcare system. i think japanese people just live way healthier than we in the western world.
if we compare our life expectancy to our neighbors, those numers could be justified to be honest. they live similar lifestyles, but do not life as long. in my book, the margin is pretty severe.
I guess you have to consider local salaries to be fair
It might have to do something with the insanely high salaries here.
Two things about this graph:
* First, in these kind of graphs what people should look at (and it should be plotted in the graph) are the “pareto fronts”. Given a point (say UK), one should draw a cross (horizontal and vertical line passing through the UK point). In the resulting 4 quadrants, any country in the NW quadrant (Italy, Spain, Israel) is doing better (longer life, lower cost). Every point in the SE quadrant (Denmark, Germany, USA) is doing worse (higher costs and shorter life). Anything in two other quadrants are incomparable, because it is arbitrary to define how much an extra year of life is worth (if you fix a number, then you can extend the comparison to these quadrants.
* Second, and most important, everybody seems to assume a causality relation between money spent and years of life. For the most part, the causality is reversed: it is expensive to take care of an old population, and the life expectancy depends on a general state of health which is more connected to diet, style of life, and preventive care (which is not the most expensive part of healthcare, but requires universal access to healthcare).
Having 100 or so redundant healthinsurances which all waste money on shareholders, CEOs and advertising (among other things) isn’t the best idea if you don’t want to be the most expensive. (outside of one absolutely mental anomaly which doesn’t even give healthcare to everyone)
i really wondered this
if you calculate the medical insurance bills of a whole life with lets say 280.-chf/month (wich is rather cheap btw), from 18yo to 75yo, you will pay around 175’000.- chf.
i really doubt that the average american pays that much in his lifetime for a few pricey bills.
yes you pay it in a span of 50+ years but mabey youll pay it without using it once…
i know insurance bills and direct medical bills are not the same but the expenses have a similar reason.
swiss pay for everyone, americans pay for themselves… i dont know wich is better, seeing people destroy themselves with drugs and food…
America solving problems be like: “Cant have a high cost when you dont *have* health care”
If I remember that correct, in switzerland there are equal or even more guns per person available than in US. But way way waaaay less ppl get killed in mass shootings and gun violence.
Well US, whats going on with you?
Because labor is disproportionate more expensive here…meaning: on most things we have a better ppp
The most surprising thing about this graphic is not that we are the second most expensive in the world or that the US is doing badly in terms of health in general. For me, it is more that other European countries are not even that far behind us in terms of cost. The Netherlands, Austria, Germany and Sweden are super expensive, too.
What a horrible graph.
How is that a surprise when we have the US as our model ?
At least we can see where we’re headed if we contiunue on this path.
I would be interested how they calculated that. As an Italian that lived a significant amount of years in France, UK and here in Switzerland for the past 30 years, I find healthcare cost less expensive – or with a lower % impact on your gross salary – for employees earning over 60/70.000 gross per year, calculated on me, single no kids. What follows is a very generic opinion and Inam not a tax / payroll expert, only an employee having paid taxes and been sick and gone through surgeries many times in 30 years and 4 countries. Public healthcare system in FR, IT and UK is paid with your income taxes. That means the contribution to healthcare is proportional to your income. Taxes vary (very imprecise figures following – general assumptions lol and not updated with recent tax changes in IT/FR/UK countries) from 35/38 % up to 45/50% in Italy (income taxes + any other kind of indirect taxes like council tax). As an employee you don’t have many deductible expenses like in Switzerland or some kind of minimum “sum of net money required for a dignified living” concept. You get your net salary and that’s it, unless you own a house or other things. You have of course kids allowance and other stuff, but you can’t deduct stuff like a company or like here in Switzerland. Many exams or doctor consultations have a “ticket” with a fixed cost, sometimes quite significant for people with low salaries. Waiting time for specialist visits, even basic exams like urines or blood are very long, you can go up to 6 months for a scan; in case your issue requires an operation and it’s not super urgent, you’ll most probably have to wait litterally months in order to have a room. So in Italy (for instance) you will tend to go to private doctors receiving patients in the hospital with their private fees (150/300 EuR a visit) – if you choose that way, you might have the exams or the surgery speed up. I am positive that those regrettably compulsory costs are not taken into account. I understand that you can’t take this into account, but that’s the reality. In Switzerland the Cassa Malati is a fixed cost that you can modulate according to your budget and need. Taxes however are much lower (I never paid more than 15% here) and are calculated after deducting some of your expenses necessary for living (car leasing if any, transportation to work, and a bunch of other stuff my accountant does for me), which is very fair. The maximum I have paid is 27%. The competition between private and public hospitals seems to me kind of healthy year, and the specialist cost of an excellent surgeon or other specialist doctor has never been over 175/185 CHF (way below the big names and famous doctors in Italy or France). I can deduct a pet of my gym expenses with the complementare, so I can stay healthier. Last, but not least, Switzerland has a politics of very high minimum wages (currently twice as much as Italy). The result in my specific and singular case is that on a salary of, let’s say for easiness of calculation, 100K, taxes + health insurance is still a % below the lowest country (UK) I have been living, for an excellent service in private clinics in 0 waiting time, regardless of which bracket of salary I might be in. Back to the original post, I do wonder how those data are calculated and would be really curious to know the opinion of a tax / payroll professional.
I feel like the age structure isn’t taken into account enough.
Obviously it’s lower if you have a young population.
On the contrary to the USA we get what we paid for.
Switzerland has an effective but highly inefficient healthcare system. This comes at the advantage of relatively prompt care and incredibly high level of skill and technologies available. The downsides are, we are being overcharged and there’s huge inefficiency in resource allocation. Most doctors have x-ray machines etc but nurses are some of the worst paid jobs in the country.
Mandatory private insurance makes no sense to me and in my personal opinion we would be better off with a single-payer base insurance with the option of private add-ons.
USA: nope