What a striking difference!

These videos highlighted the sharp contrast between America's health care system and those of other countries. It was clear that all these countries seem to have a system that is working better than that of the United States. One of the videos said that America ranks 37th in the world in terms of health care quality and fairness. It scares me though that the U.S, historically and culturally speaking, is founded upon beliefs and principles that may hinder us from emulating these systems that seem to work so well. For instance the U.S seems to be centered around individuality, privatization, laissez-faire, and having as little government involvement in the private sector as possible.

It was so interesting to learn more about the system in Japan. It is encouraging to hear that Japan has found a way to provide all 130 million inhabitants with health insurance and how health care costs are so incredibly low. I was shocked to hear that it costs only $10 to stay in a 4 person room at a hospital overnight, and $90 to stay in a private room. This sounds almost impossible. However, because Japan's health ministry is regulating costs and making them standardized across the entire country, it is possible. As a result of these low prices though, 50% of hospitals are in deficit. Clearly, the Japanese system has its flaws, but they are doing something incredibly right considering that they are spending half as much as the U.S. per capita and have the longest healthy life expectancy and the lowest infant mortality rate. My questions about the system in Japan are: 1) How could they keep their costs low and affordable, and yet keep their hospitals out of deficit? 2) If an individual does not need to make an appointment to see a doctor, how can it be that there is no wait time?

I also found it interesting that the U.K is marked as the world leader in preventative medicine. My question is: 1) Why is this? 2) And how could we as the U.S learn from this? I just think that preventative medicine is so fundamental. With more preventative medicine our uninsured citizens could avoid having to go to the E.R. and being charged preposterous fees.