Health Care Spending
Among 30 Free-Market Countries

Skyrocketing U.S. health care costs started shortly after the U.S. went to an increased focus on private health insurance companies via “managed care” and health maintenance organizations (HMO’s).

Position at graph

The U.S. is the only free-market country with a large involvement of for-profit companies in health care spending. Most of the other countries have 1) no for-profit health insurance companies or 2) have health insurance companies that are non-profit and strictly regulated.

What happened in the 1970’s to cause this serious problem relative to other countries?

1. OUT of the USA: National Health Insurance. The other countries completed their implementations of national health insurance in the mid-1970’s. Canada was one of the last ones.

2. IN the USA: Health Insurance Companies. The United States began an increased use of the free-market private health insurance companies in the mid-1970’s by the use of the “managed care” concept. The increased focus on the free-market in the U.S. of that “managed care” concept must sound cool, because some citizens still believe in it’s HMO’s are a good thing. It was a dismal failure, as this graph and the Canada graph show. So much for rationing care by restricting doctors and having each health insurance company determine their rules (for what they would pay for) … and so on … and so on.

We Must Get Costs Under Control
by Following the Plan

Source a New York Times graph of data from the OECD, Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development and its 30 free-market countries